accross the border and now in prague/praha, whichever you like

well krakow is definitely one not to miss, and the polish people (if you stumble apon the right ones of course) are extremely friendly; especially for lazy english-only speaking tourists like myself. i have become a master at international common sense sign-language so don't take me on in charades...

last wrote after a lovely day and evening in krakow. visited wawel castel - pronouced with a "v" sound - with a suitably nerdy tourguide who proceeded to give us an overwhelmingly detailed description of almost every emplacement in the wawel cathedral and the sorrounding castle grounds. from this point my brain was liquified and could absorb no further information; hence the lack of post that evening. the laziness can also be attributed to the deliscious "typical jewish" (according to our waiter) dinner served in the old jewish part of town. this section of krakow is particularly vibrant and we returned the following day to visit the jewish museum which highlighted many aspects, both joyous and horrific, of the suburb's history. of particular note for the uninitiated in krakow is that this was the "ghetto" pictured in schindlers list and was the site from which thousands of innocent jewish people were herded to the nearby death camps of auschwits and birkenau. incidentally we didn't make it out to these places: partly out of choice not to be depressed beyond all means of rehabilitation, and partly becasue we literally ran out of time. just seeing the city was a task to perform in 2 and a half days.

that afternoon we met our polish friends whom we made through the reception desk window at the hostel and who coincidentally happened to be departing to prague the same day as us. they had proposed that, instead of simply catching the overnight train from krakow to prague at the cost of 40euro, we take a bus to the town of ciszyn and then walk accross the border to the czech side of the town and then take the domestic train from there - which effectively cut the cost to about 5euro each with a group discount on the ticket. win win win. adventure and cheapness! the estimated 3-hour bus-ride to cesynic was almost halfed by our psychotic driver who was determined to break landspeed records, but despite the nervous twitch that i aquired from this experience we managed to have ample time to have the polish equivalent of maccas before trudging accross the border (not that i ever eat mc d's but it was too hard to resist a "star burger" from "conieco" - which is the polish equivelent for poo-bears "little something" saying that he makes when he is hungry.)

our friends turned out to be utter characters, and have that uncanny ability to be better speakers of english than people who are born native. ewa, our friend from the desk, is doing her english honours thesis on james joyce. she skipped ulysses - lucky for her - but impressive none the less. we made it accross the border without our friends cracking up; which is apparently a problem for polish people when they hear czech republicans speak. the language isn't completely mutually comprehensible, but polish people can pretty much understand czechs ok... except for the small problem that they break out laughing halfway through every sentance because of the pronounciation differences. we were told that it was the equivalent of a whole country of people who spoke english really slowely and with a huge lisp.

eg: "the train ticket is 100 szlota and takes 6 hours" becomes, most comically: "the thwain thicket is 100sthlotas and thathes thickth hourths"
quite a good comparison. not that there is anything wrong with lisping... (?!)

survived an incredibly uncomfortable midnight-till-dawn train ride curled up in my quater of the cabin and then praised the hostel-god for having people at the station again because, even though we were with people that work in the krakow equivalent, we forgot the map. slept in until lunchtime and then spent the afternoon exploring this beautiful place. i had been warned that the crowds might be a little bit of a nightmare compared to our previous destinations and on this advice was wary of prague; but the picturesques "set-like" perfection and intricate facades along with the superflous amount of cool art-deco stores amongst the cobblestoned streets cancels out all affects of the otherwise endless and boystrous crowds. am yet to sink a beer but will do so tonight. planning to see the praha symphonic orchestra play in the st nicholas church (part of the old square here) tomorrow night which i am looking forward to.

have the castle, the bridge and the rest of the city to explore so will write more about here when i've seen it.

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