I Love Poland like a Druggie Loves Krak-ow!

Okay I know I'm absurdly behind. Tomorrow I'll be done with finals and papers and such, so maybe I'll get completely caught up...maybe. Anyways, I thought I'd finish up on the Adventures of Nikki's Easter (Spring) Break! Last stop on the 5-country break was Krakow, Poland. Easter weekend in Poland might have been the best idea we'd ever had. Apparently Poland is ridiculously Catholic. Who'd a thunk? Not I. I guess I never really wondered, but nonetheless I wouldn't have pictured that...like ever. Good to know, eh? The cutest little Easter market in the center of town provided lots of painted eggs that I fought myself for 2 solid days to not buy (I won...although I don't know how much of a win NOT BUYING them is...), YUMMY food, and raspberry beer. Walking around, what do Whitney and Emily decide to do but juggle while they wait for me to get back down from the random hill I saw and of course HAD to climb:

(while Mike stands by awkwardly. Haha!). Grinning the whole way, we got to the Wawel castle just before sunset. On the other side of the castle, a hill overlooked the Vistula river. While the others took pictures, juggled, and did other sources of merriment, I propped myself up on the ledge of the wall and just sat looking out:
The clouds raced by, in a hurry to whatever their destination was. It was absolutely breathtaking. I'm a dork, and of course wrote a poem about it when we got back to the hostel that night.

Darkness fell as we made our way back to the hostel. In contrast to the pitch black of the outside, the glowing lights from the various churches in the middle of their Easter Vigils beamed out, beckoning passers-by in. As we kept going, we came across an Easter vigil coming outside to light their candles. Having never experienced a view such as this, I was only slightly disturbed by the images that the campfire reflected off the priests' garments. I felt really bad about it, but it definitely just made me think of pretty much what my subconscious had oriented with the idea of cult gatherings:

I don't know what that says about me...whoops!

The next day we walked around some more, exploring the Jewish quarter. We visited the old Jewish cemetery. Noticing that many of the gravestones had rocks set atop, I was intrigued:

After getting back, I researched into this and found out that it's a Jewish tradition to leave a rock when you visit a gravesite, to mark that you visited and in honor of the person whose grave you visited, much like our flower version, albeit a more permanent gesture, as the rocks won't wither, nor will they fly away. It was astonishing how many rocks some of the gravestones had. I love it.

Sunday, Emily and Mike had to leave earlier than Whitney and I. So after dropping them off at the bus station, we headed back to the Easter market (of course) to eat and shop some more. Walking around afterwards, we heard music. Naturally, we headed off in that direction. What do we find, but nuns dancing...to a monk praise band!!!!!

We were all kinds of excited. While Whitney recorded the festivities, we both just stood there with the biggest grins on our faces. I remarked that the only thing that would make this better is if they all of a sudden started playing a song that I knew. What happened two songs later? They started playing "How Great is Our God"...in Polish!! I didn't think my smile could have stretched any bigger, but apparently it could, and did as soon as I heard the beginning of the song. I mean, it sounded more like "pddddedjhf nsssjsfhskuerg seue isbnde gaaaaaaad!" to my complete lack of understanding Polish, but I sang along (and danced, too, of course) in English, thinking that there was no better way to spend an Easter evening.

As the sun started to fall, it was time for Whitney and I to head to the train station to catch our night train back to Vienna. As Whitney had talked to the lady in German when buying our tickets, we didn't realize that we were in a fancy sleeper car until we found our absolutely beautiful PRIVATE compartment, with our own sink, closet, chocolate croissants, and bottled waters:

We slept better than we had all trip and awoke bright and early (about 6 am!) in Vienna, still glowing from our wonderfully epic Spring Break! (More Krakow pictures here)