Sharing LIfe

The Dreaded door

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:26:32 -0600

So we left Venice and all its crowds and boarded our train to the next great city... Florence! We were on a train for about 2 1/2 hours and getting tired of the crowds and traveling. So after a day of traveling nothing is better than seeing the gleaming door of your hotel, stepping into your nice room, and laying your tired head and feet down for a few minutes. We headed out of the train station with our heavy luggage in tow to a Florentine street teaming with people. We pushed and jostled through the streets with map in hand trying to find our hotel. Finally, there was the street our hotel was on... and it was the dirtiest and busiest of all the streets. We stepped over pictures, watches, and sunglasses for sale searching the walls for the name of our hotel. Getting nervous by the second as we saw our surroundings become more questionable. Finally we spotted the restaurant that was near our hotel and then... the dreaded door (which I conveniently forgot to take a picture of). The door was locked and required you to press a button that would signal the owner to open the door for you (this took us a little while to figure out). Once inside, there was another gate guarding the stairs to the hotel (all under video surveillance) and then three flights of stairs up to another door. As we climbed the stairs, my mind started wandering to gang shootings and bed bug bites. We considered turning around when the last door was answered by a pleasant woman who scurried us in to the lobby. We cautiously looked around and were surprised to see a nicely decorated lobby. The nice lady took us directly to our room. I closed my eyes as she opened the door and very slowly opened them hoping all was well with the world. I was shocked to see a pleasant oasis of a room. It was large with a private bathroom and a small courtyard view and it was surprisingly quiet. The final test was a flip of the bed sheets which revealed a very white clean bed and a pillow begging to be used. We ended up loving this hotel. The nice lady showed us several places in Florence that were useful to us (including where to do laundry). All in all I would have to give the Pensione Canada a thumbs up. It just goes to show that you never judge a book by its cover!

Are italians better?

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:40:22 -0600

Venice... the word provokes emotions doesn’t it? We were excited to see Venice, a city built on water, but we were unprepared for the massive amount of other people who also wanted a piece of Venice. It was sad to see tourists leaving their mark on the beautiful city with graffiti, trash, and mass amounts of pedestrian traffic crammed into small alley-ways. Despite the massive crowds, we braved the streets and canals and were pleasantly surprised around every corner with another beautiful building or picturesque spot. However, what we have come to love in every city is to view the society around us and see how the “local yocals” live. We were greatly rewarded with a fantastic display of local pride (and partying). On our second day in Venice around 5:00 pm, we started seeing massive amounts of people (all speaking Italian) heading towards one spot in Venice. A bridge was even temporarily placed to help with the hordes of people. We noticed local boats coming out by the hundreds and filling the lagoon. Soon the lagoon and streets were overcrowded with people partying and just waiting... We decided to wait too and found a spot along a wall overlooking the water, just watching and listening to people and music. Finally, at 11:45 pm we were rewarded with the culmination of this apparently HUGE event. The sky began to light up with an amazing display of fireworks! Every five minutes I thought we were at the grand finale, but they just kept coming! 45 minutes later the sky was bright with the best grand finale we have ever seen. All I have to say is, “AMERICA, STEP IT UP!” The Italians totally blew our puny firework displays out of the water. Apparently, they have this celebration every year (kind of like our 4th of July) to commemorate the end of the plague that killed about 40,000 people of Venice in the 1500’s. We were so excited to share in this excellent display of fireworks, but more importantly to watch people making and celebrating history. So on our next 4th of July, I better see a great display... I mean who wants to get beat by the Italians?

The search for lody

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:20:08 -0600

We had been in Krakow for three days and had tried about every ice cream shop in the city center. The ice cream was good and we felt completely satisfied. But we heard from one of our tour guides that we were missing out, “The best ice cream is in the Jewish quarter in Kazimerez, they don’t advertise, but they always have a line down the street. You have to go!” she said. What? We were missing out on the best ice cream in the city? In my mind it was a done deal... we were going to find this ice cream shop! Our last day in Krakow brought us to the Jewish quarter where we were enjoying a Jewish meal. So we spoke to our waiter, “We’ve heard about this ice cream shop, do you know where it is?” Apparently, he was the only person in the city who didn’t. So we timidly approached waiter number 2, hoping our tour guide hadn’t been pulling our leg... “Yes, it’s somewhere down Strad.... street.” he replied. So we set out on our journey. After walking quite far down Strad.... street and getting quite disappointed that we didn’t see an ice cream shop, we almost decided to give up. But, my taste buds were screaming for ice cream so I approached a random guy (number 3) on the street, “I’ve heard of this legend of an ice cream place, do you know where it is?”. He gave me a knowing smile and pointed me down the opposite way of Strad.... street and told me I couldn’t miss it that I would see a crowd of people around it. So off I skipped back down the road excited with my mouth watering. But what was this!!! The road split... which way to go! So I stayed on the straightest path and continued walking, but as far as I could see there was no crowd of people. I began to become so disappointed about the ice cream (by this time we had been searching for 45 minutes). But alas!!!! People began walking by and they were carrying something that resembled a half eaten ice cream cone. We walked all the way to the end of the road but still no ice cream shop, so I bravely approached person number 4 (who was carrying one of these prized cones). She laughed and pointed me back up Strad.... street but to the other side of the split. By this time I didn’t care what it took, I WAS getting that ice cream. We turned around again and continued on the right way. At first, we still saw nothing and then as we got further down the road a crowd started to appear. As we drew near, we saw only one sign over a little hole in the wall shop about the size of a small bathroom. The sign said “Lody”. So we joined the line hoping it was actually for ice cream and not some strange Polish ritual. As we got closer, I saw it... 7 gleaming bins of ice cream. I had made it! Despite the language barrier I ended up with a cone full of raspberry and blueberry ice cream and Chad had coffee and chocolate. Little did our taste buds know they would soon be rejoicing. My first lick of this beloved ice cream was AMAZING! It was all and so much more!! I smiled with delight and traipsed off, cone in hand, for the long walk back. All I have to say is 45 minutes walking and lost was absolutely worth it. I’ve never tasted Lody so great!!!!

Falling in Love

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:45:29 -0600

We arrived in Krakow tired, dirty, and almost ready to go home. Little did we realize that we would soon come to LOVE this city! We stepped out of the train station (after a few attempts to get there... see previous blog) and realized, “Wow, we can’t read any of the street signs, we don’t know where we are, we are tired, no one is speaking english... what do we do?” Finally, after much trepidation with our luggage and the many stairs, we found our hotel room. We both were wondering what we got ourselves into, but we braved this new world and stepped out the door to explore. We walked down the road and stepped onto the Market Square... the only way to explain it is “WOW!” There were horse drawn carriages, string quartets, patio diners everywhere, churches larger than life, and everything around us was old, not run down old, but quaint and charming old. Our first night brought us to a patio diner and as the night progressed we were even more impressed, there were street performers with fire and the pulse of Krakow was alive! Feeling a little more comfortable with our surroundings we concluded our evening with some much needed ice cream. The next day we awoke with a fresh spring in our step and began exploring churches, museums, the works. The highlight of our second day was our bike tour. We rode bikes around the city for four hours and met some wonderful people including a girl from Canada named Sue-Jen who continued touring with us for the evening. On the bike tour we learned about the amazing city we were in and saw all the impressive sights (and they do impress). Our third day was quite sobering, we made a trip out to Auschwitz concentration camp. There are no words to express the feelings this provoked. I will be posting a video of our experience later and I hope that through the images you will understand the heaviness we felt and remember with honor the people who lost their lives. After our visit to the concentration camp we felt as if we could not do anything else so we turned in early for the night. Day four was both wonderful and sad. We were so excited to once again be awake in an amazing city, but also sad with the realization that we were leaving. We used our last day to tour one of the most amazing sites... Wawel Castle! Pictures will never do this place justice, it is huge and beautiful!!! We finished up the day with a trip to the Jewish quarter and enjoyed a Jewish meal (yummy!!!). We moseyed back to the main Market Square and enjoyed coffee and the atmosphere that we will miss so much. So here I sit on our train to Venice hoping someday that I will once again be in Krakow... a city I’ve come to love so much.

24 hours later

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:19:14 -0600

Train travel... so glamourous! Sleeper cars, food cars, no seat-belts, the list is endless! We started our train adventure in Zurich Switzerland. Our first train was at 4:34 pm and just like the Swiss, it was right on time. We stepped up into a luxurious first class car that we pretty much had all to ourselves. Our day was looking great! But, tragedy struck around 6:04 pm when our connecting train in Basel wasn’t there! The train was 25 minutes late!!! This put me into a little frenzy as our second connecting train in Warsaw was due only 30 minutes after our arrival (at the scheduled time). So we hopped on our late train realizing we would be running to make our connection. We located our sleeper car which was to be shared with 6 people! (Now how glamourous does that sound?) Luckily, we only ended up having to share with 2 others (who brought enough luggage for 10). So needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep smashed between 4 suitcases and roasting to death in our top bunks. Apparently, we slept some because our train came to a complete standstill for an hour during the night. So, we awoke to the sun and also the news that we were not just 25 minutes late, we were an hour and a half late!! While slumped over in the hallway (our roommates were still snoozing), I was contemplating how to get to our final destination, when I met this strange woman who turned out to be a Godsend. Her name was Helena and she was originally from Poland but immigrated to Canada 30 years ago so her English was great (as was her Polish). Apparently, she pegged me as an American immediately because I smiled at her (she’s a world traveler and she says Americans smile the most). We ended up sitting in the food car enjoying conversation and she even paid for our breakfast! Upon arrival to our destination, she even rushed around with us trying to change our reservation. Even with all her help we weren’t able to change our tickets so she told us to board the next train and slip the conductor some money... welcome to Poland! She walked us to the platform and waved goodbye to us. Everything worked out okay, the train personnel never even checked our reservation, just our ticket (which was good for all day no specified time). I breathed a sigh of relief as I sunk myself into my seat. We finally reached our destination at 4:30 pm the next day tired, dirty, in desperate need of a shower. So our glamourous train ride ended with rumpled clothes, dirty teeth, tired body, but a wonderful friend made and the realization that there are wonderful people everywhere even across the world on a small sleeper train somewhere in Poland!