The shopping Centre in Krakow! (Krakowska Galleria)
Day 163 1 zloty (PLN) = 2.3 AUD
Here we are! In Poland!!!
Took us 7 hours to get here and 3 passport control checks and 3 train ticket checks (leaving Austria, at Czech Republic border and arriving in Poland!)
Poland. A country surrounded by 7 others..amazing eh?
At first i thought it'd be really poor country..but now we've been here a bit longer, i realise it's quite upmarket. Greg came here in 2001 (To Gdansk where the shipping yards are and where the creation of Solidarity took place!) and he said it was COLD when he came...way below zero. Frozen in fact!
So for both of us..this is something quite different..it´s warm and not as oppressive as we both thought it would be!
Well, the main shopping centre is anyway! The Krakowska Galleria. It's like stepping into Paris! The other buildings surrounding it are pretty shabby and grey tho..and one thing i noticed is the bright red colours (red and white are the Polish flag colours) the women wear..and shiny...and also, people are carrying bunches of flowers around...hmm. And there are a lot of fruit and veg shops..ohlala.
Also, it's very quiet in the streets. It's like people are too scared to talk. People walk along very quietly. I remember i felt this in Antwerp (Belgium) as well. Seems civilised. I wonder if, here, people stay quiet out of habit..maybe it's been drummed into them not to speak for fear of recrimination or judgement.
After all that i've learned about the Nazi regime and the Russian takeover here in Poland..i just wouldn't be surprised if this is left over from then. It hasn't been that long since Poland has become a country out of fear.
Nevertheless, whatever the reason...the streets seem silent. Reminds me of robots walking around. OK. Not quite that bad but it did cross my mind! We must be such a rowdy bunch in Aus for me to notice such a contrast!
The train trip here to Krakow from Vienna was pretty crap...it squeaked and rattled all the way here. But after 7 hours (slow train!) we finally made it! Talk about being starving hungry once we arrived! Thank god for train stations...! (Honestly the train stations in Europe are like another city..all decked out with lots of cafe's and fruit marts and newsagents etc) It's great!
And our apartment is FANTASTIC!!!
So cheap. And clean. And big. We have our own kitchen and bathroom and it's half the price as the hotel we ended up in in Vienna..so we're very happy! Probably stay a day or two longer just to catch our breath and do some of our own cooking.
Today we went looking for a vege peeler....to build up our kitchen goods! hahaha
That's one thing...we dont have to buy much. Everything is here...as far as kitchen stuff goes..except the vege peeler!!!! (the last apartment in Vienna didn't have one either so i wonder what they use!)
So tonight..i'm going to cook up so many veges i think we'll probably burst. The one i made in Vienna lasted us two days...and we called it Goulash soup in honour of Hungary's "goulash soup"! (That isnt really typical hungarian..its just a tourist thing they cottoned onto!)
Might make this other dish as well...one i found in a Polish book from the tourist office. (where i am now!) It has flour, eggs and water mixed to make a dough and filled with cabbage....then blanched in water and shallow fried. It's called a pierogil. Sounds good eh.
Some of the other Polish foods in the book which look really good are kielbassa (sausage), Golabki (cabbage rolls), and a vegetable soup that has boiled eggs, dumplings and mushrooms. I'm getting hungry just looking at the pics!
Here's the doughy one below...apparently, according to the book, you can have cabbage or meat or make it a sweet one using dried fruit. Lots of room for variation. My type of recipe!
Anyway, it's exciting thinking of doing our own cooking for a few days!
I'm in the Tourist office at the moment..so better go.
Hope you don't mind my grammatical and spellos in here...sometimes i'm in here so fast..that i don't have time to even think and i just have to splatt out the words and don't have time to edit...Mind you, every country has it's own spelling anyway, so somewhere in the world it has to be right!!! Ie Restaurant in Italian is ristorante..in Spanish it's Restaurante...in English it's Restaurant..and in Polish it's restaurancje!!!!!! Funny eh.
So sorry about the spelling at times...!!!!!
It's the bane of my life, not being able to edit!
I know i'm 'the teacher' as Andy reminds me...and I should be able to spell the words....like 'definitely'!!! But, I tell ya..'definately' looks so right!!!!!! I've probably been spelling it wrong for years! And i'm so pedantic usually about spelling...as my wonderful work colleagues can attest to...Caza Bob..and Suzie..hehe
Okies...enuff!
Going, going, gone.
PS Still trying to sell Telstra shares! Geepers.
PPS GO DOCKERS!!!!!! What legends they are.................................
