Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Comments
Well I'm not sure how many people had this problem but my mother has been complaining about it so I figured I'd look into it. Apparently when my mother tried to make a comment it wouldn't let her, and when I checked on it the blog was automatically set so that only people logged into an account with something on here was allowed to comment on my blog. I fixed that so it should be easier to comment now. Sorry for the trouble before.
First Week of School
Well I've kept y'all waiting long enough so it is time for me to tell y'all about what Polish school is like. There are many similarities and many differences.
First I should explain how my schedule works. My classes are different every day and I start and end school at different times. Monday I start school at 9 o'clock and end at 3:45, Tuesday at 8 o'clock and end at 2:45, Wednesday at 10 o'clock and end at 2:45 (Yes Wednesday is my favorite day of the week.), Thursday is my longed starting at 8 o'clock and ending at 3:45, and Friday I start at 9 o'clock and end at 2:45. My classes are 45 minutes apiece and have 15 minutes between them. Unlike in the US there is no lunch break because Polish meals are at different times. I just have one class after another after another until I leave. But the fifteen minute breaks are actually pretty long and the classes fly by most of the time. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, other than language classes, the same students are in all of the same classes. When I don't know where the next class is I usually just follow my classmates and I can find it.
Though I should mention I didn't start school until 10 my first Monday, and I got out at about 12:45. For most schools the first day of school is kind of like an orientation. We started out going to this big Catholic church. I was following around my host sister's friend who goes to my school because my host sister had her own school to attend. Aga introduced me to some of her friends while we waited to enter the church and I got to meet some of my first normal Polish kids, who I would be going to school with. When we got into the church I had to stand in the back behind a column so I couldn't see what was going on. I did this for an hour, listening to a very long sermon in Polish that I didn't understand and mumbling gibberish when everyone else said prayers, at least I think they were prayers. Occasionally we had to kneel down for some reason, but for the most part I was standing there bored out of my mind for a hour. After that we had an assembly in a conference hall with I think the Freshman class only, they put me into the Freshman class her :'(, I was given one of my classmates to translate important parts while the Headmaster gave his speech. Then we went to our homerooms where our teacher read out the schedule for the class. I had barely any idea what she was saying, so at the end when all of the students came to greet the new foreign kid one of them was nice enough to help translate my schedule. Then we toured the school for about ten minutes and everyone else either went home or went to take proficiency tests in their foreign languages. I didn't really know if school was over though so I went to find my homeroom teacher, an English teacher, and asked her if school was over. When she stopped laughing she told me yes and that I could go home.
For the rest of the week I basically did the same thing, go to classes, pay attention for the first five minutes long enough for me to correct the teacher when she called roll and pronounced my name Dallas Vells and then say "Nie mowie po polsku." Which means "I don't speak polish." Then the teacher would laugh or look confused, my classmates would say something in Polish and I got to ignore the teacher for the rest of the lesson. I really just sit in class with my nook reading while everyone else does the work because the other students are studying and there really isn't anything to do. Between classes I talk to my classmates because Polish kids start learning English in 1st grade and so all but a couple of my classmates are pretty fluent. Though when I really want to practice my Polish there is one student in my class who doesn't understand almost any English so I can talk to him, though not very well. Still my whole class is very nice and most of them enjoy listening to my accent or think it is really cute when I butcher the Polish language. And of course I'm already starting to learn how to cuss in Polish.
One day last week I managed to go out with some of my friends from my class. For the most part they took the whole class I we mostly just walked around Krakow for about two hours. We walked through the Krakow main square which is right near our school and then we walked to the Jewish Ghetto to pick up some Zapiekankas which were really really good. The ones we had were special too because you can only get ones like them in Krakow. And in case you're wondering a zapiekanka is a half a loaf of toasted bread with some kind of vegetables under cheese. On top of that you can get a lot of things, but I just had salami and garlic sauce on mine. It was absolutely delicious. Along the way people had left when we got near bus stops that led to their homes so there were only a handful of us left at that point. We walked a little ways to a fountain to eat our food and when we sat down I decided I should go find my train home before I was completely lost. I'm not really sure how I did it, but without getting too lost I found a train leading home.
Oh and I just wanted to add something that I found interesting about Polish schools. Here I have a religion class. I found it kind of interesting that something that is illegal to even talk about in the US has an entire class dedicated to it in Poland. Though I still don't understand anything so for me the only difference between it an a normal class is that I have a priest for a teacher.
And while I'm sure you are all looking forward to seeing what pictures I have taken this week, I didn't take any of my school because while I take my camera everywhere with me I'm not a tourist. It would be creepy to walk around me school taking random pictures so I didn't. But if y'all really want to see the inside of my school and my classmates leave a comment saying so and if enough people ask I'll swallow my pride and creep around my school with a camera. Until next time, see ya.
First I should explain how my schedule works. My classes are different every day and I start and end school at different times. Monday I start school at 9 o'clock and end at 3:45, Tuesday at 8 o'clock and end at 2:45, Wednesday at 10 o'clock and end at 2:45 (Yes Wednesday is my favorite day of the week.), Thursday is my longed starting at 8 o'clock and ending at 3:45, and Friday I start at 9 o'clock and end at 2:45. My classes are 45 minutes apiece and have 15 minutes between them. Unlike in the US there is no lunch break because Polish meals are at different times. I just have one class after another after another until I leave. But the fifteen minute breaks are actually pretty long and the classes fly by most of the time. Oh and I almost forgot to mention, other than language classes, the same students are in all of the same classes. When I don't know where the next class is I usually just follow my classmates and I can find it.
Though I should mention I didn't start school until 10 my first Monday, and I got out at about 12:45. For most schools the first day of school is kind of like an orientation. We started out going to this big Catholic church. I was following around my host sister's friend who goes to my school because my host sister had her own school to attend. Aga introduced me to some of her friends while we waited to enter the church and I got to meet some of my first normal Polish kids, who I would be going to school with. When we got into the church I had to stand in the back behind a column so I couldn't see what was going on. I did this for an hour, listening to a very long sermon in Polish that I didn't understand and mumbling gibberish when everyone else said prayers, at least I think they were prayers. Occasionally we had to kneel down for some reason, but for the most part I was standing there bored out of my mind for a hour. After that we had an assembly in a conference hall with I think the Freshman class only, they put me into the Freshman class her :'(, I was given one of my classmates to translate important parts while the Headmaster gave his speech. Then we went to our homerooms where our teacher read out the schedule for the class. I had barely any idea what she was saying, so at the end when all of the students came to greet the new foreign kid one of them was nice enough to help translate my schedule. Then we toured the school for about ten minutes and everyone else either went home or went to take proficiency tests in their foreign languages. I didn't really know if school was over though so I went to find my homeroom teacher, an English teacher, and asked her if school was over. When she stopped laughing she told me yes and that I could go home.
For the rest of the week I basically did the same thing, go to classes, pay attention for the first five minutes long enough for me to correct the teacher when she called roll and pronounced my name Dallas Vells and then say "Nie mowie po polsku." Which means "I don't speak polish." Then the teacher would laugh or look confused, my classmates would say something in Polish and I got to ignore the teacher for the rest of the lesson. I really just sit in class with my nook reading while everyone else does the work because the other students are studying and there really isn't anything to do. Between classes I talk to my classmates because Polish kids start learning English in 1st grade and so all but a couple of my classmates are pretty fluent. Though when I really want to practice my Polish there is one student in my class who doesn't understand almost any English so I can talk to him, though not very well. Still my whole class is very nice and most of them enjoy listening to my accent or think it is really cute when I butcher the Polish language. And of course I'm already starting to learn how to cuss in Polish.
One day last week I managed to go out with some of my friends from my class. For the most part they took the whole class I we mostly just walked around Krakow for about two hours. We walked through the Krakow main square which is right near our school and then we walked to the Jewish Ghetto to pick up some Zapiekankas which were really really good. The ones we had were special too because you can only get ones like them in Krakow. And in case you're wondering a zapiekanka is a half a loaf of toasted bread with some kind of vegetables under cheese. On top of that you can get a lot of things, but I just had salami and garlic sauce on mine. It was absolutely delicious. Along the way people had left when we got near bus stops that led to their homes so there were only a handful of us left at that point. We walked a little ways to a fountain to eat our food and when we sat down I decided I should go find my train home before I was completely lost. I'm not really sure how I did it, but without getting too lost I found a train leading home.
Oh and I just wanted to add something that I found interesting about Polish schools. Here I have a religion class. I found it kind of interesting that something that is illegal to even talk about in the US has an entire class dedicated to it in Poland. Though I still don't understand anything so for me the only difference between it an a normal class is that I have a priest for a teacher.
And while I'm sure you are all looking forward to seeing what pictures I have taken this week, I didn't take any of my school because while I take my camera everywhere with me I'm not a tourist. It would be creepy to walk around me school taking random pictures so I didn't. But if y'all really want to see the inside of my school and my classmates leave a comment saying so and if enough people ask I'll swallow my pride and creep around my school with a camera. Until next time, see ya.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
First Full Week in Poland with My Host Family
Well it is time to stop being lazy and write more on my blog. Though for the most part the week I had after Polish camp was uneventful.
Since I had finished language camp and all of the other exchange students went home there was actually very little for me to do. Basically all I did that entire week was lay around the house, derp around on my laptop, and bug my host sister. But two days I did get to do some interesting things.
The one thing I did that was slightly productive was teach my host sister how to play Texas Hold 'Em. She isn't very good. After I taught her she grew to like the game so since we have played it pretty often, though she's only beat me twice. The first time was because I started out with 2 chips opposed to her 28 chips..... it took her about a half hour to win. The second time I'll write about in my next post because it happened the week after. Still I managed to have a lot of fun with my host sister by taking all her chips. Thank god we weren't playing for money or she would be broke by now.
Other than that, the actual exciting thing I did was to go to a botanical garden here in Krakow, or at least I think that is what this kind of garden is called. Anyway we walked around there for a while and I found the Polish equivalent of Dippin' Dots and got some. They were pretty good and they came in this plastic red baseball cap. When I finished the ice cream I actually wore the hat around, much to Kamila's dismay. The garden was beautiful and I think it was actually more than a hundred years old. After that my host sister stole my hat and we went back to the Krakow main square and watched some of the street performers, and I got a couple pins for my Rotary blazer.
The other interesting thing I did that week was I got to go to a Polish party. One of the previous exchange students was throwing himself a welcome back party and invited Kamila and me. It was really interesting. Polish parties apparently have a lot of dancing involved. Most of the girls there were sad though because there was a football (soccer) game between Krakow and Warsaw on that night so the guys wouldn't let them dance until after it was over. And since the Krakow team had lost, the other guys were so depressed apparently they derped outside. Which meant as the only guy still in the house I was forced to dance. And yes the hilarity ensued from there. But I had a lot of fun and according to my host sister I'll probably end up going to a lot of parties in Poland. So stay tuned.
Now for the best part of every one of my blog posts, the pictures!
Since I had finished language camp and all of the other exchange students went home there was actually very little for me to do. Basically all I did that entire week was lay around the house, derp around on my laptop, and bug my host sister. But two days I did get to do some interesting things.
The one thing I did that was slightly productive was teach my host sister how to play Texas Hold 'Em. She isn't very good. After I taught her she grew to like the game so since we have played it pretty often, though she's only beat me twice. The first time was because I started out with 2 chips opposed to her 28 chips..... it took her about a half hour to win. The second time I'll write about in my next post because it happened the week after. Still I managed to have a lot of fun with my host sister by taking all her chips. Thank god we weren't playing for money or she would be broke by now.
Other than that, the actual exciting thing I did was to go to a botanical garden here in Krakow, or at least I think that is what this kind of garden is called. Anyway we walked around there for a while and I found the Polish equivalent of Dippin' Dots and got some. They were pretty good and they came in this plastic red baseball cap. When I finished the ice cream I actually wore the hat around, much to Kamila's dismay. The garden was beautiful and I think it was actually more than a hundred years old. After that my host sister stole my hat and we went back to the Krakow main square and watched some of the street performers, and I got a couple pins for my Rotary blazer.
The other interesting thing I did that week was I got to go to a Polish party. One of the previous exchange students was throwing himself a welcome back party and invited Kamila and me. It was really interesting. Polish parties apparently have a lot of dancing involved. Most of the girls there were sad though because there was a football (soccer) game between Krakow and Warsaw on that night so the guys wouldn't let them dance until after it was over. And since the Krakow team had lost, the other guys were so depressed apparently they derped outside. Which meant as the only guy still in the house I was forced to dance. And yes the hilarity ensued from there. But I had a lot of fun and according to my host sister I'll probably end up going to a lot of parties in Poland. So stay tuned.
Now for the best part of every one of my blog posts, the pictures!
The hat I got from my ice cream. (It took forever to get this picture.)
Part of the Garden
A little piece of home in Poland.
Krakow Main Square at night
Second Week of Polish Camp
Hello again everyone. If you're reading this I'm going to assume that you are interested in hearing about the second part of my language camp.
To start off, the first Thursday of Language Camp we had a test on everything we had learned up until then. If you know me personally you can already guess that I did pretty well on the test, I got a 95 of of 100. Honestly though I would say that had more to do with me being good at testing than Polish. But because of this I was moved into the advanced group with people who more or less knew what was going on. One of my new classmates had already been here for 6 months (Southern Hemisphere has their seasons at opposite times of the year so their school year is different.) and another kid who fluently spoke 4 different languages and could speak Polish well enough to have conversations with random Polish people cutting grass. My new teacher was nice but she taught almost the entire lesson only using Polish so I almost never knew what was going on. The only English she used was when she was translating a word directly for us because she couldn't really find a way to do that in Polish. But towards the end of the week she just had the people who knew a fair amount of Polish translate the word for her and kept speaking Polish. I learned a little bit, but my classes were really difficult and my lack of understanding made me space out more than a few times. But on the last Thursday of Language Camp we had another test and I got a B so I guess I was doing better than I though.
Now enough of my difficulties with the language, the only thing you really know about Polish is that it is really difficult to learn if you an English speaker and that there are a lot of rules that pretty much make no sense. So, the more fun parts of the second week were the events we got to do. Rather than taking us on little trips every day, we had a little more free time and generally had games, or something else to do during our nights.
One of them were kind of like the Polish Camp Olympics, they split us up into our various countries, though the US had two teams, the USA team and the International team which was the extra US kids, Canada and Taiwan. I was on the latter one. The games went from medicine ball throw, egg toss, tug-a-war, dressing men up like idiots (I'll go more indepth in that one later because it was funny), and a water ballon fight. The USA team won almost every single event, though Brazil won one, and Mexico kept up with them. My team was so far behind that in the last event, the water balloon fight, we gave up on winning and ignored the rules. Basically we played dodge ball with water balloons, the tug-a-war rope made the center line that we weren't allowed to cross and if you were hit by a balloon you were out. First the USA team played the Mexico team, and the Mexico team was destroyed, making the US team the final victors. After that my team played Brazil and instead of playing dodge ball, my team grabbed balloons and stormed over the line, throwing our balloons at them even after we were hit and even taking some of their balloons to throw at them. It was a lot of fun and the looks on the RA's faces were priceless.
Now to explain the dress-up contest. Basically each of the four teams chose a guy and the idea was to make him look as stupid as possible. We all spent a while trying to make these guys look like women, idiots, or a combination of both. We all did really well. At the bottom I'll post a picture of 3 of the 4 models, you'll hear why the last wasn't in the picture in a moment. Anyway, after we dressed them up, each had to have either their team introduce them to the judges, or they had to themselves. The catch was that they had to introduce them in Polish. So the first few did a few awkward sentences we learned from the week before but my team had the guy who basically spoke fluent Polish as our model. So we had him go up and he spoke really well. But at the same time he gave the judges a strip show, pulling off everything we had worked so hard to put on him. Honestly it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. He ended up in just his boxers blowing kisses to the judges. And since he wasn't all dressed up that is why he wasn't in the picture.
Other than that, we watch another Polish movie that I mentioned before. This one was a chick flick call "Just Love Me" but the title was in Polish. To me it seemed like a less funny version of the Adam Sandler movie "Big Daddy". But anything beats Suicide Room so most of us didn't really complain.
Another night we went back to the mall, where my group decided to make a McWhopper by putting a Big Mac into a Whopper. The two who did it said it was delicious. We just kind of messed around at the mall other than that and it was actually kind of cool. Since bread and cheese gets old when you have it twice a day for nearly two weeks I brought a couple McDoubles back from the mall for supper.
The biggest thing we got to do is one night they said that they had a surprise for us and they pulls us all out to this little pasture. We found out that we were going to make lanterns that worked as hot air balloons. If you've seen the movie "Tangled" I think they have lanterns like I'm talking about in those. It was so cool to light each of our lanterns, hold it until the inside filled with hot air and then let it go into the sky.
On our final night of Polish Camp we played some random games with German kids. The first was called "Emergency". It was basically freeze tag but to unfreeze someone four people had to pick them up by their arms and legs and carry them to the mats that served as bases. It was really funny to watch the mall German kids try to lift me, they ended up needing 6 people to do it and they were still pretty much dragging me. The second was kind of stupid so I'm not going to explain it, and at the end we played volleyball, but I played basketball with some of the kids from Mexico instead.
On our last day of Polish camp we had a little ceremony were a girl from my Rotary club (one of the only two times I've seen her.) came down and basically handed us a certificate that said we finished the Intensive Polish Curse. (In Polish course is kurse so the translation got mixed up in a really ironic way because the polish language is a curse.) We all got dressed up in suits and wore our blazers, except for me because I left my blazer with my host family on accident.
Then last Sunday we all returned to our host families, most people having about 10 hour train or bus rides to get home. I was with them all until the end because my host sister had to stay until they were all gone and I stayed with her.
To start off, the first Thursday of Language Camp we had a test on everything we had learned up until then. If you know me personally you can already guess that I did pretty well on the test, I got a 95 of of 100. Honestly though I would say that had more to do with me being good at testing than Polish. But because of this I was moved into the advanced group with people who more or less knew what was going on. One of my new classmates had already been here for 6 months (Southern Hemisphere has their seasons at opposite times of the year so their school year is different.) and another kid who fluently spoke 4 different languages and could speak Polish well enough to have conversations with random Polish people cutting grass. My new teacher was nice but she taught almost the entire lesson only using Polish so I almost never knew what was going on. The only English she used was when she was translating a word directly for us because she couldn't really find a way to do that in Polish. But towards the end of the week she just had the people who knew a fair amount of Polish translate the word for her and kept speaking Polish. I learned a little bit, but my classes were really difficult and my lack of understanding made me space out more than a few times. But on the last Thursday of Language Camp we had another test and I got a B so I guess I was doing better than I though.
Now enough of my difficulties with the language, the only thing you really know about Polish is that it is really difficult to learn if you an English speaker and that there are a lot of rules that pretty much make no sense. So, the more fun parts of the second week were the events we got to do. Rather than taking us on little trips every day, we had a little more free time and generally had games, or something else to do during our nights.
One of them were kind of like the Polish Camp Olympics, they split us up into our various countries, though the US had two teams, the USA team and the International team which was the extra US kids, Canada and Taiwan. I was on the latter one. The games went from medicine ball throw, egg toss, tug-a-war, dressing men up like idiots (I'll go more indepth in that one later because it was funny), and a water ballon fight. The USA team won almost every single event, though Brazil won one, and Mexico kept up with them. My team was so far behind that in the last event, the water balloon fight, we gave up on winning and ignored the rules. Basically we played dodge ball with water balloons, the tug-a-war rope made the center line that we weren't allowed to cross and if you were hit by a balloon you were out. First the USA team played the Mexico team, and the Mexico team was destroyed, making the US team the final victors. After that my team played Brazil and instead of playing dodge ball, my team grabbed balloons and stormed over the line, throwing our balloons at them even after we were hit and even taking some of their balloons to throw at them. It was a lot of fun and the looks on the RA's faces were priceless.
Now to explain the dress-up contest. Basically each of the four teams chose a guy and the idea was to make him look as stupid as possible. We all spent a while trying to make these guys look like women, idiots, or a combination of both. We all did really well. At the bottom I'll post a picture of 3 of the 4 models, you'll hear why the last wasn't in the picture in a moment. Anyway, after we dressed them up, each had to have either their team introduce them to the judges, or they had to themselves. The catch was that they had to introduce them in Polish. So the first few did a few awkward sentences we learned from the week before but my team had the guy who basically spoke fluent Polish as our model. So we had him go up and he spoke really well. But at the same time he gave the judges a strip show, pulling off everything we had worked so hard to put on him. Honestly it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. He ended up in just his boxers blowing kisses to the judges. And since he wasn't all dressed up that is why he wasn't in the picture.
Other than that, we watch another Polish movie that I mentioned before. This one was a chick flick call "Just Love Me" but the title was in Polish. To me it seemed like a less funny version of the Adam Sandler movie "Big Daddy". But anything beats Suicide Room so most of us didn't really complain.
Another night we went back to the mall, where my group decided to make a McWhopper by putting a Big Mac into a Whopper. The two who did it said it was delicious. We just kind of messed around at the mall other than that and it was actually kind of cool. Since bread and cheese gets old when you have it twice a day for nearly two weeks I brought a couple McDoubles back from the mall for supper.
The biggest thing we got to do is one night they said that they had a surprise for us and they pulls us all out to this little pasture. We found out that we were going to make lanterns that worked as hot air balloons. If you've seen the movie "Tangled" I think they have lanterns like I'm talking about in those. It was so cool to light each of our lanterns, hold it until the inside filled with hot air and then let it go into the sky.
On our final night of Polish Camp we played some random games with German kids. The first was called "Emergency". It was basically freeze tag but to unfreeze someone four people had to pick them up by their arms and legs and carry them to the mats that served as bases. It was really funny to watch the mall German kids try to lift me, they ended up needing 6 people to do it and they were still pretty much dragging me. The second was kind of stupid so I'm not going to explain it, and at the end we played volleyball, but I played basketball with some of the kids from Mexico instead.
On our last day of Polish camp we had a little ceremony were a girl from my Rotary club (one of the only two times I've seen her.) came down and basically handed us a certificate that said we finished the Intensive Polish Curse. (In Polish course is kurse so the translation got mixed up in a really ironic way because the polish language is a curse.) We all got dressed up in suits and wore our blazers, except for me because I left my blazer with my host family on accident.
Then last Sunday we all returned to our host families, most people having about 10 hour train or bus rides to get home. I was with them all until the end because my host sister had to stay until they were all gone and I stayed with her.
The "Models"
McWhopper
Lanterns
Wieliczka Salt Mines
Well I have finally got around to telling y'all about the Wieliczka Salt Mines, one of the biggest attractions in Krakow. I went there a week ago tomorrow with my Polish Language Camp. And just to warn you, when I post pictures they probably aren't ones I took, my camera died before we got to the good parts.
Now I should start off by talking about the stupid dare I did the morning before I went. To make a long story short, some of the girls dared me and two other guys to paint our fingernails like Polish flags for the whole day. So for the entire trip to the salt mine I was mostly complaining that my fingernails were bright red and white. But true to my word I didn't get that stuff off until the end of the night. And yes, Polish people did look at me like I was crazy periodically, especially my host sister.
After we got the the salt mines we had to wait until our group was allowed to go down in them so we had some free time. This was basically spent as souvenir shops where I looked at things and eventually got a pin for my blazer. Later we got some Polish popsicles and sat around in a very pretty park until it was time to go down.
Then we got to enter the mine. We had to go in two separate groups, with about 20 people each. I was in the first group. The first thing we had to do is go down about fifty flights of stairs. It was actually amazing to look at because there was a little hole between them where you could look straight down. At the end of it there was a little black dot which I found out at the bottom was just another fifty flights of stairs with the lights turned off. Then we started into the salt mine.
I'm not really sure how to describe what it looked like. It was a big tunnel with dark rocks, wooden beams supporting it, and what looked like glass in some of the rocks, but that was actually salt. Honestly if you really want to understand just what it looks like though the only way is to come to Krakow and go yourself. Anyway we went through various tunnels, at several points we made out with walls to taste the salt, and got to see magnificent carvings of salt that told a bunch of different stories. We saw a lot of really old methods of moving salt through the mine and learn a lot about the history of the mine. But I still have two more blogs to do until I've caught up to where I am at now so you will just have to look it up or just be content that I know and when I get back to the US you'll have to beat me with a shovel to get me to shut up about it.
We got to see two churches while in the mine, the churches were actually places where people cut a big room out of the rock and carved statues of Jesus into the walls. That might make it sound like a cave, but the first one was pretty, and the larger one was one of the nicest churches I have ever seen, all about a hundred yards beneath the ground and carved out of salt hundreds of years ago. We were even told that rarely proms are held in the church, which caused my group to talk for about ten minutes about how cool it would be if our Polish proms were in the salt mine.
Some other things we saw were underground lakes where the water is so dense that it is impossible to drown in it without specifically trying to kill yourself. Because there is so much minerals in the water, instead of sinking your body would float so well that you couldn't even swim under the water. But sadly we weren't allowed to swim in them, though I did throw of couple coins into it like a giant wishing well.
There was a lot more things that we saw, but most were just different ways to move salt, more history, more stories and legends about the mine, and more salt and lakes. Since I don't have time to tell you about all of that, and I already explained what those things were I'll just move on to exiting the mine.
At the end of the mine there were of course big gift shops for souvenirs and as we kept going through the tunnels that led to the exit (which is all several hundred feet underground) we saw a buffet, a fine dining restaurant, and even a bank, all in this mine. It was actually really funny. Sadly we only went to the third of 9 levels, the rest either being too dangerous or, as in the case of the 9th and last level, flooded with water. Instead of going back up several hundred flights of stairs to leave the mine, they shoved us into these little three story elevators and told us to scream so that our ears will pop. Then the elevator shot us up really fast and before we knew it we were back on the surface. After that me and two of my new friends here got these really tall ice cream cones and we all went to see one of those 3D sidewalk paintings. It was really cool, but I also thought that they look better in pictures.
From there we went back to the camp. Now I'll show you some pictures the other exchange students took.
Now I should start off by talking about the stupid dare I did the morning before I went. To make a long story short, some of the girls dared me and two other guys to paint our fingernails like Polish flags for the whole day. So for the entire trip to the salt mine I was mostly complaining that my fingernails were bright red and white. But true to my word I didn't get that stuff off until the end of the night. And yes, Polish people did look at me like I was crazy periodically, especially my host sister.
After we got the the salt mines we had to wait until our group was allowed to go down in them so we had some free time. This was basically spent as souvenir shops where I looked at things and eventually got a pin for my blazer. Later we got some Polish popsicles and sat around in a very pretty park until it was time to go down.
Then we got to enter the mine. We had to go in two separate groups, with about 20 people each. I was in the first group. The first thing we had to do is go down about fifty flights of stairs. It was actually amazing to look at because there was a little hole between them where you could look straight down. At the end of it there was a little black dot which I found out at the bottom was just another fifty flights of stairs with the lights turned off. Then we started into the salt mine.
I'm not really sure how to describe what it looked like. It was a big tunnel with dark rocks, wooden beams supporting it, and what looked like glass in some of the rocks, but that was actually salt. Honestly if you really want to understand just what it looks like though the only way is to come to Krakow and go yourself. Anyway we went through various tunnels, at several points we made out with walls to taste the salt, and got to see magnificent carvings of salt that told a bunch of different stories. We saw a lot of really old methods of moving salt through the mine and learn a lot about the history of the mine. But I still have two more blogs to do until I've caught up to where I am at now so you will just have to look it up or just be content that I know and when I get back to the US you'll have to beat me with a shovel to get me to shut up about it.
We got to see two churches while in the mine, the churches were actually places where people cut a big room out of the rock and carved statues of Jesus into the walls. That might make it sound like a cave, but the first one was pretty, and the larger one was one of the nicest churches I have ever seen, all about a hundred yards beneath the ground and carved out of salt hundreds of years ago. We were even told that rarely proms are held in the church, which caused my group to talk for about ten minutes about how cool it would be if our Polish proms were in the salt mine.
Some other things we saw were underground lakes where the water is so dense that it is impossible to drown in it without specifically trying to kill yourself. Because there is so much minerals in the water, instead of sinking your body would float so well that you couldn't even swim under the water. But sadly we weren't allowed to swim in them, though I did throw of couple coins into it like a giant wishing well.
There was a lot more things that we saw, but most were just different ways to move salt, more history, more stories and legends about the mine, and more salt and lakes. Since I don't have time to tell you about all of that, and I already explained what those things were I'll just move on to exiting the mine.
At the end of the mine there were of course big gift shops for souvenirs and as we kept going through the tunnels that led to the exit (which is all several hundred feet underground) we saw a buffet, a fine dining restaurant, and even a bank, all in this mine. It was actually really funny. Sadly we only went to the third of 9 levels, the rest either being too dangerous or, as in the case of the 9th and last level, flooded with water. Instead of going back up several hundred flights of stairs to leave the mine, they shoved us into these little three story elevators and told us to scream so that our ears will pop. Then the elevator shot us up really fast and before we knew it we were back on the surface. After that me and two of my new friends here got these really tall ice cream cones and we all went to see one of those 3D sidewalk paintings. It was really cool, but I also thought that they look better in pictures.
From there we went back to the camp. Now I'll show you some pictures the other exchange students took.
The Tunnels of the Mines
Statues Carved of Salt
They tell a story that has to do with the mine.
The First Underground Church
(The tiles on the floor are just carved out of salt)
The Second Underground Church
The chandeliers are carved out of salt.
The chandeliers are carved out of salt.
The 3D Painting
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