relaxing day

This morning we listened to professor dobkowski speak to us about his parents story. It was very interesting to me because I always loved the movie “defiance” because it exposed to me a part of the holocaust that I never had known about before I watched it. his parents both hid out in the woods and that is how they survived so to hear their story was huge for me. then we walked to old Krakow where we saw various synagogues and listened to the rest of sally’s story of survival. Following that we got lunch on our own and myself and a group of some of the other students went on a quest to find pierogies. We found a nice restaurant and were able to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine on such a beautiful day in Krakow. The pierogies were relatively cheap (15 zloty=$4.40 u.s.) and absolutely delicious. After we in front of the Krakow ghetto. We were supposed to go in a check out the buildings and schindler’s factory, however, as usual, things did not go as planned. I was disappointed that we did not get to see these sights. So today was an overall very light day for us. The weather was phenomenal and we got to really enjoy our stay in Krakow. We listened to president mark gearan from hws speak to us about service and then spent some time debriefing in smaller sized groups. Next we went to dinner at an excellent restaurant in downtown Krakow where we were served a multi-course meal. We were given bread at our table. Then, they brought over giant bread bowls with a soup that was different, but good. Next, we had our pierogies, which were a variety of potato, cabbage, and beef. Throughout our meal we saw some traditional polish dancing and listened to some music and they invited some of us up to dance. One of the guys picked me and I was so embarrassed but he just kept twirling me around so I was able to manage, but my cheeks were still red i’m sure. Then we were given a sort of flaky cake with a different filling that was like cheesecake but much much lighter, if that even makes any sense! For the rest of the night we had free time and I wanted to spend it checking out some of the shops but everyone else had booze on the mind so we spent some time searching for a bar. A lot of the bars were crowded because a big soccer game was on tv tonight. While we were searching we found one of those beer bike carts I described the other day, so of course I had to check it out! It was great, a bunch of us decided to do it, including professor dobkowski, president gearan, and another one of the hws professors. It was the funniest thing. We drove around downtown and cheered as we passed people. We peddled away and drank our hearts out and had a blast. It was honestly one of my most favorite things I have ever done. Next we got ice cream (strange, I know) but it cost 4 zloty and I only had a 50 so president gearan paid for me, it was very nice. The old guys went back to the hotel and the kids hit up the bar and club seen. Everywhere there are girls that hand you coupons for drinks at the bar. We went to one and had a lot of fun dancing. It is interesting to listen to the music there. We heard songs such as “uptown girl” “it’s my life” and the song that’s in the shaving commercials that goes “I’m your venus, I’m your fire, your desire.” But we had a great time dancing and it started to get late so a few people headed back but the rest of us went on looking for more places to check out. One place wouldn't let us in because a few of the guys were wearing sneakers. The next place i.d.ed us but it was funny because they didn’t know where to find our date of birth on our license. I danced with a boy from Britain. Oh, European boys :P that’s it for tonight. I had a lot of fun. We all needed it after yesterday.

Goodnight!

-jill

synagogue in krakow

sally after telling us her story of survival

group after lunch

memorial outside of the krakow ghetto

market square

me and my roommate, laura, in market square

some of the group

most of the group

me and my new friend lisa (hws, from brooklyn)

dancers

market square at night

myself, margaret, and andrew on the beer bike cart

lisa, john, and i on the beer cart

president gearan, professor dobkowski, and professor salter

me and lisa with a few british boys we met dancing