Well in my quest to catch up to where I am now, I'm going to tell everyone about my fairly recent trip to Warsaw. This was during the week of the 17th to the 23rd. Monday through Friday I'm just gonna skip over, as they were fairly uneventful rather than learning a bit of Polish, and getting invited to go hiking in the mountains with my classmates, which I was forced to turn down because it was at the same time as going to Warsaw, though I wish I could have done both. Still, on Friday I skipped school and got on a train to Warsaw.
Anyway, for the third time I've taken a train now, though this was definitely the worst. Since we didn't get on the train fast enough (meaning we weren't in front of a door when the train stopped) we were forced to find a place to sit other than an actual seat. But by the time we found this out even the cart that only had people sitting on the floor along the walls was full so we were forced to sit in a big bunch in front of the door. Lucky me, I got to sit with my back against the door, getting pushed to the side whenever it opened and curling into a ball every time someone wanted to walk in or out the door, so about every ten minutes. Coupling that with the fact that I sat on a metal floor for three hours straight made this a miserable train ride. But still, when we got there I got to see a lot of my friends from Polish Language Camp, so we spent several hours greeting eachother. When everyone was finally there we went to our hostel, not hotel but a hostel. The difference between the two is you rent a room in a hotel, in a hostel you rent a bed and if someone you don't know rents a bed in the same room. We were lucky because Rotary rented all the beds in each of the rooms for us, but it was still from 8 to 12 people in a room. The rooms were really nice though, all had some kind of theme. I ended up in the horror themed room though I didn't sleep under the painting of the devil or under the painting of the girl from The Ring, so I was good. I decided to name the room New Mexico though because of the ten people in the room only three weren't Mexican. After this we basically just partied in the hostel for half the night, enjoying eachothers company and basically acting like teenagers. Needless to say we were stupid and went to sleep late, something we regretted when we had to get up early in the morning.
The next day was the day when we got everything done. So it was a pretty packed day. First we got on a bus and got a tour of Warsaw, driving past a lot of well known places and hearing about the city's history, even if the history was only a few decades ago, something rare for Poland. Most of it was about the Warsaw Uprising, when the Nazis held the city and the city of Warsaw fought back. This ended with Hitler leveling the city, only 13 buildings were left standing. The reason Warsaw isn't a very historic place is actually because all of the history there was destroyed and the city had to be built new. (On another note, Krakow and Warsaw are like Parker and Wickenburg. Those from Krakow think Warsaw is horrible because it has no history and is all modern and efficient so they think it is ugly. On the other hand people from Warsaw view Krakow as old and run down without having much to do in the city. I personally like both cities, they each have their own unique qualities but I've decided not to mention this to my classmates. That'd be like going to Parker High in a Wickenburg school shirt during Spirit Week.)
We spent several hours at the Warsaw Uprising museum, which I thought had a similar feel to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. It seems Hitler's atrocities inspired a few very nice museums. After this we went on another bus tour of Warsaw and stopped briefly at several monuments. We saw the Polish version of the White House, and then we went back to the hostel for a few minutes to get our Rotary blazers and head to the orientation.
We started it by making every student introduce ourselves in Polish. A lot of the kids did a very good job, though introductions were something all of us knew well, and though it makes up the largest amount of my comprehensible Polish I have yet had need to introduce myself. When I meet people others are always quick to explain who and what I am for me. When I got passed the microphone though I choked and made a couple mistakes. After feeling like an idiot I sat bad down. After that we got a speech on the rules of being an exchange student, most of which were half common sense and half things that rarely happen. Finally we got to the thing that excited most of us, information about the EuroTour. This is the trip we take toward the end of our exchange that takes us around the whole continent of Europe. We were all a little disappointed as well as excited after the presentation. While it looked like something that would be a shame to miss, a month going through and seeing several of the most well known countries in Europe, we were all sad at the fact that Italy was pretty much skipped over. I guess we complained a little too loudly because at the end of the meeting the asked if we'd like to use the program that they did last year which went to different countries, but saw most of Italy. This made us all happier, and I've seen the new program since and I really can't wait.
After this we finished the night by going to a part of Warsaw and getting some free time. I spent this shopping for pins for my blazer with some friends (I got some really nice ones.) and we even found a shop owner who spoke fluent Spanish. This didn't really interest me but one of our group was a Mexican and another was a Mexican-American so they were really excited, as was the shop owner. They ended up taking pictures together and getting his email. After this we went to get ice cream and got utterly lost. We finally found our group a half hour after we were supposed to meet and after that we went to the Dancing Fountain. This was a really cool water show that used lights and at some points they would use a mist to catch the light of a projector and by doing so they turned the water into a moving movie screen. I would put pictures of this, but a friend took a video of it and she agreed to send it to me so I'll put that on here as soon as I get it from her. After this we went back to the hostel and since I had caught a cold by standing out in the rain I went to bed early.
The next day was uneventful, we got up and then quickly left to catch our trains at the train station. I got to see a friend from Krakow who had gone to the Coldplay concert the night before I came to Warsaw, someone I hadn't seen since the Language Camp. Then we loaded onto the train, I got the task of kicking the Polish people out of the seats assigned to us since "my English was the best" (not true considering we brought an extra American back with us.) and I also guess because I seem to look intimidating. So after about 20 minutes of convincing the people in our seats that they were in the wrong seats using broken Polish and English we sat down and headed home.
When I got back home I packed up. Because of some misunderstandings I had learned at the beginning of the week that I would be changing host families. So I had two hours to pack all of my worldly possessions (mostly clothes) and I met my new host family. My host mom talked to them for about an hour and then I left to go to my new home.
Now time for the pictures. Once again I managed to forget my camera though, so I have to steal pictures from other exchange students that were there.
And sorry if you are reading this now, it is late at night here (I'm 9 hours ahead of y'all in Arizona if you didn't remember) and my new host family only has internet in their kitchen. Considering I have to go through the room of my two little brothers to get to mine I try not to stay up too late so they won't be asleep when I do decide to retire to my rooms. Anyway I'll put up pictures tomorrow.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Lakes of Mazury
Well, when it takes me several weeks to write a new blog post that means one of two things, I'm so busy doing amazing things in Poland that I don't really have time to write or I'm just being a lazy good for nothing and wasting my time. These last few weeks have been a mixture of both. I have got to do extraordinary things, but at the same time I have had several chances to write and have just goofed off instead. :P In either case, I have finally gotten down to it so I'll start where I left off, the week of September 10th through the 16th.
Now, like almost everyone my age around the world I spend the majority of my week simply going to school. Of course I've mentioned before that this is different for me because there is absolutely nothing for me to do in school. I don't mind it too much, I like lazing around throughout the school day. Though I should mention that there is one class that I have to work in, French Class. This teacher decided that since none of the other students understand French then I could learn with them. I was put in the lowest possible class, there are students at my school who are fluent in French in the upper classes. Language classes in Europe start a lot earlier and they actually teach you in hopes that you become fluent in the language, because since their countries are the same distance and size as some of our states, they go on vacations and things to other countries rather than just to another state. Anyway, the problem with me learning about French though is that half the time I can't figure out if she is talking in French or Polish during the class. Honestly I keep getting in trouble, but I've already given up trying in the class and now I spend it checking my wristwatch to see how much longer I have, and deciding if she is speaking to us in French or Polish. Also I have to buy my text book (Schools don't provide them for you in Europe. But they are a lot smaller and cheaper so it isn't too big of a deal.) but I have absolutely no idea where to buy this book.Though, besides French class, my days are almost all lazy and uneventful. After school I often am really sleeping and go take a nap. I've started to run for an hour every couple nights because I still haven't been able to find a sports club (I'm still trying to wrestle but it is beginning to look like I'll have a year off the mat.) and with the huge servings of food my family gives me I'm getting fatter. And since I refuse to end up like Nelson I shall find some way to exercise all this Polish food off.
Now for the fun stuff. This weekend skipped school Thursday and Friday because I spent 4 days in a part of Poland called Mazury, which is very far from Krakow. Mazury is where Poland's form of the "Great Lakes" are and it is absolutely beautiful. I probably won't write too much about it because this is one of those places you can't describe with words. Hopefully you can get a small glimpse at what I saw through the pictures. Though sadly I have to steal my fellow exchange students' because I have the bad habit of forgetting my camera.
But before that I'll explain a little of what we did. First I got to ride on a train for the first time. This actually isn't a big deal since I will be doing this every once in a while. In Poland if you want to go a decent distance you don't drive, you take a train. I found that they don't all look like Hogwarts, the first time was actually seats similar to a plane, though the second ride was a little booth with random people in it, just like I remember from Harry Potter. From here we got on a van-bus thingy and they drove a few hours to Mazury. Most of the people on the trip were Brazilian or Mexican so Portuguese or Spanish was the languages spoken most during this trip. I spent the bus ride asleep because I rarely knew what was being said.
That night we went and had "the best pierogis in Mazury" at least that was what Pawel claimed. They were very good, but honestly almost all pierogis are starting to taste the same, all of them are just very good. And them we got to the two cabins that we would be staying in. The first thing they did was ask two of the biggest guys to help move a couch bed upstairs, so me and a Brazilian, Iuri, headed over to the girls' cabins to help. After breaking the couch bed and figuring out that there was no way for it to fit through the door leading upstairs, we kind of left the broken bed where it wouldn't cause too much problems and someone could still sleep on it. Then we got back to our cabin and had last choice of best for our troubles. I ended up sleeping in the living room on the boys' couch bed, which wasn't the most warm or comfortable place to be. After all this they told us that we could have a little party and left us to do our own thing. We all went to sleep at about three in the morning and got up at 7 the next day.
The first thing I noticed was that I forgot a towel, so I had to get as dry as I could after my shower and then just go to breakfast wet. This was especially uncomfortable since it is about 40 degrees in Mazury at this time. After breakfast they got all of the guys together and we went to chop down a tree with the two axes we found. It was fun cutting down the tree, though I was blind in one eye most of the time thanks to a flying wood chip from the tree. We then had to carry the 20 foot tree down the road back to camp, which we got a lot of pictures of..... well everyone else did, I didn't have a camera. After making some of the only clothes I had dirty and covered in wet tree and mud we started cutting the tree into small logs for the campfire that night. This was fun, but it soon became clear that a few people could use the axes and others would take all day to cut the tree and would probably hurt someone. A few hours later we left to go explore the area.
We drove through some of the large towns that are around the lakes. The first thing we did was go to the Wolf's Lair (which is the translation from German to English). This was one of Hitler's most important bases during WWII. He had lived there for several months and there was even an assassination attempt on him by a German officer while he was there. It was cool, but it was supposed to be hidden in the trees and everything was mostly large broken cement buildings covered in moss because the Germans blew the whole place to bits when they left it. Then we saw a Bishop's Palace, an really big old castley building with a great view from the tower, and I had a weird "French hot dog". It was a hotdog put into a breadstick sleeve thingy. It didn't taste bad but Polish people use way too much ketchup, and it was just really weird to eat. After this we went to see an organ concert, one of those giant church pianos with the giant pipes that makes Baby Grand pianos look like a childs toy. This one was really cool because it was largely automated, some of the sounds coming from the angels decorating it shaking bells, or spinning wheels or whatever. After this a lot of us guys got cheap airsoft guns (though I really wanted to get one of the switchblade knives they sold. I love how some of the things that are illegal to own in the US are perfectly normal here.). Most of the guns were broken by the end of the night, but we did have fun shooting eachother and cussing in several languages when we were shot. Dinner that night was kielbasa or Polish sausage, and some weird stew thing they cooked in the camp fire we made. We would have made smores but the only marshmallows you can get in Poland are little bubble gum flavored ones and those are hard to find, plus they would be horrible for smores.
The next day we went to explore some of the other towns in Mazury. At one point we were being led somewhere and I was walking with a couple of the Mexicans and the Columbian kid. We got left behind and lost because they went nuts over seeing a duck (and it had nothing to do with them never seeing one before which is usually the reason exchange students go nuts when they see something. They all have them in their countries but they just seemed to love the duck...I named it Aflac.) When we called to tell them we had gone missing they told us that they were on a tight schedual so just to meet them back at the bus in an hour. So we went to a pizza place and had second breakfast. While we ate we found the group, and it turns out they had just gotten turned loose for freetime too. Since they didn't have as much time as us they couldn't get their own pizzas and went off to find different food. We then had some ice cream before loading onto the bus to head off to go on a cruise on the lakes. It was cool, the Rotary club of the town we were in took us on this big party boat and invited a bunch of teenagers from the Polish high school (I never learned what they had to do with Rotary but there was something.) A bunch of the guys thought it was really cool to meet an American so I spent the entire boat ride talking to them about random things. I was happy however to find out that one of them was a wrestler, mostly because I miss wrestling, I haven't found a club for it in Krakow yet. Wrestling isn't very popular in Poland, most people don't even know what it is. After that we were all pretty tire so we went back to the cabins and got to have another little party again, though this time half the people were outside dancing with the bus driver. (His name is Arthur, but you pronounce it like AR-TOO-ER). It was a fun night, and the next day we went home. But the kids from Krakow took a later train so we could stay in Warsaw and see it a bit. All we did was go to the mall and then had some munchies at the Hard Rock Cafe but it was still fun.
Now what you have all been waiting for, pictures of the Mazurian Lakes!
Now, like almost everyone my age around the world I spend the majority of my week simply going to school. Of course I've mentioned before that this is different for me because there is absolutely nothing for me to do in school. I don't mind it too much, I like lazing around throughout the school day. Though I should mention that there is one class that I have to work in, French Class. This teacher decided that since none of the other students understand French then I could learn with them. I was put in the lowest possible class, there are students at my school who are fluent in French in the upper classes. Language classes in Europe start a lot earlier and they actually teach you in hopes that you become fluent in the language, because since their countries are the same distance and size as some of our states, they go on vacations and things to other countries rather than just to another state. Anyway, the problem with me learning about French though is that half the time I can't figure out if she is talking in French or Polish during the class. Honestly I keep getting in trouble, but I've already given up trying in the class and now I spend it checking my wristwatch to see how much longer I have, and deciding if she is speaking to us in French or Polish. Also I have to buy my text book (Schools don't provide them for you in Europe. But they are a lot smaller and cheaper so it isn't too big of a deal.) but I have absolutely no idea where to buy this book.Though, besides French class, my days are almost all lazy and uneventful. After school I often am really sleeping and go take a nap. I've started to run for an hour every couple nights because I still haven't been able to find a sports club (I'm still trying to wrestle but it is beginning to look like I'll have a year off the mat.) and with the huge servings of food my family gives me I'm getting fatter. And since I refuse to end up like Nelson I shall find some way to exercise all this Polish food off.
Now for the fun stuff. This weekend skipped school Thursday and Friday because I spent 4 days in a part of Poland called Mazury, which is very far from Krakow. Mazury is where Poland's form of the "Great Lakes" are and it is absolutely beautiful. I probably won't write too much about it because this is one of those places you can't describe with words. Hopefully you can get a small glimpse at what I saw through the pictures. Though sadly I have to steal my fellow exchange students' because I have the bad habit of forgetting my camera.
But before that I'll explain a little of what we did. First I got to ride on a train for the first time. This actually isn't a big deal since I will be doing this every once in a while. In Poland if you want to go a decent distance you don't drive, you take a train. I found that they don't all look like Hogwarts, the first time was actually seats similar to a plane, though the second ride was a little booth with random people in it, just like I remember from Harry Potter. From here we got on a van-bus thingy and they drove a few hours to Mazury. Most of the people on the trip were Brazilian or Mexican so Portuguese or Spanish was the languages spoken most during this trip. I spent the bus ride asleep because I rarely knew what was being said.
That night we went and had "the best pierogis in Mazury" at least that was what Pawel claimed. They were very good, but honestly almost all pierogis are starting to taste the same, all of them are just very good. And them we got to the two cabins that we would be staying in. The first thing they did was ask two of the biggest guys to help move a couch bed upstairs, so me and a Brazilian, Iuri, headed over to the girls' cabins to help. After breaking the couch bed and figuring out that there was no way for it to fit through the door leading upstairs, we kind of left the broken bed where it wouldn't cause too much problems and someone could still sleep on it. Then we got back to our cabin and had last choice of best for our troubles. I ended up sleeping in the living room on the boys' couch bed, which wasn't the most warm or comfortable place to be. After all this they told us that we could have a little party and left us to do our own thing. We all went to sleep at about three in the morning and got up at 7 the next day.
The first thing I noticed was that I forgot a towel, so I had to get as dry as I could after my shower and then just go to breakfast wet. This was especially uncomfortable since it is about 40 degrees in Mazury at this time. After breakfast they got all of the guys together and we went to chop down a tree with the two axes we found. It was fun cutting down the tree, though I was blind in one eye most of the time thanks to a flying wood chip from the tree. We then had to carry the 20 foot tree down the road back to camp, which we got a lot of pictures of..... well everyone else did, I didn't have a camera. After making some of the only clothes I had dirty and covered in wet tree and mud we started cutting the tree into small logs for the campfire that night. This was fun, but it soon became clear that a few people could use the axes and others would take all day to cut the tree and would probably hurt someone. A few hours later we left to go explore the area.
We drove through some of the large towns that are around the lakes. The first thing we did was go to the Wolf's Lair (which is the translation from German to English). This was one of Hitler's most important bases during WWII. He had lived there for several months and there was even an assassination attempt on him by a German officer while he was there. It was cool, but it was supposed to be hidden in the trees and everything was mostly large broken cement buildings covered in moss because the Germans blew the whole place to bits when they left it. Then we saw a Bishop's Palace, an really big old castley building with a great view from the tower, and I had a weird "French hot dog". It was a hotdog put into a breadstick sleeve thingy. It didn't taste bad but Polish people use way too much ketchup, and it was just really weird to eat. After this we went to see an organ concert, one of those giant church pianos with the giant pipes that makes Baby Grand pianos look like a childs toy. This one was really cool because it was largely automated, some of the sounds coming from the angels decorating it shaking bells, or spinning wheels or whatever. After this a lot of us guys got cheap airsoft guns (though I really wanted to get one of the switchblade knives they sold. I love how some of the things that are illegal to own in the US are perfectly normal here.). Most of the guns were broken by the end of the night, but we did have fun shooting eachother and cussing in several languages when we were shot. Dinner that night was kielbasa or Polish sausage, and some weird stew thing they cooked in the camp fire we made. We would have made smores but the only marshmallows you can get in Poland are little bubble gum flavored ones and those are hard to find, plus they would be horrible for smores.
The next day we went to explore some of the other towns in Mazury. At one point we were being led somewhere and I was walking with a couple of the Mexicans and the Columbian kid. We got left behind and lost because they went nuts over seeing a duck (and it had nothing to do with them never seeing one before which is usually the reason exchange students go nuts when they see something. They all have them in their countries but they just seemed to love the duck...I named it Aflac.) When we called to tell them we had gone missing they told us that they were on a tight schedual so just to meet them back at the bus in an hour. So we went to a pizza place and had second breakfast. While we ate we found the group, and it turns out they had just gotten turned loose for freetime too. Since they didn't have as much time as us they couldn't get their own pizzas and went off to find different food. We then had some ice cream before loading onto the bus to head off to go on a cruise on the lakes. It was cool, the Rotary club of the town we were in took us on this big party boat and invited a bunch of teenagers from the Polish high school (I never learned what they had to do with Rotary but there was something.) A bunch of the guys thought it was really cool to meet an American so I spent the entire boat ride talking to them about random things. I was happy however to find out that one of them was a wrestler, mostly because I miss wrestling, I haven't found a club for it in Krakow yet. Wrestling isn't very popular in Poland, most people don't even know what it is. After that we were all pretty tire so we went back to the cabins and got to have another little party again, though this time half the people were outside dancing with the bus driver. (His name is Arthur, but you pronounce it like AR-TOO-ER). It was a fun night, and the next day we went home. But the kids from Krakow took a later train so we could stay in Warsaw and see it a bit. All we did was go to the mall and then had some munchies at the Hard Rock Cafe but it was still fun.
Now what you have all been waiting for, pictures of the Mazurian Lakes!
This is the view from the front of our cabins. And yes, that is me shooting the photographer with an airsoft gun, the only one that was still working.
The view from inside one of the destroyed buildings of the Wolf's Lair. Most of them looked pretty similar to this.
This is the Bishop's Palace
The duck that got us lost
The view of the lake we sailed on. It would be prettier if it hadn't been cloudy and rainy all day.
The church where we heard the organ concert.
The Organ
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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