Tuesday, April 17, 2018--day 7

Hey what’s krakowlacking folks, it’s ya main main man Abdul and I’m here to tell you about the day. 
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We were in Krakow today. After spending the night in the Pollera hotel, which was really nice like one of those the movies, we headed to Krakow’s main market and seen this really large church there. Poland has the biggest and most artistic churches on earth, the one we went to had a bugler, who starts playing a song at the beginning of every hour and stops playing about thirty seconds in to symbolize that actual bugler who was playing the bugle and that exact melody and was shot in the throat.

We had a lot of free time today so I went a bought a couple of things for the fam and myself, had a delicious lunch, Russian pierogis are the way to go and had a fun time hanging with friends but the best place that I thought we visited today was the synagogue. The synagogue back in the day used to be one of the ammunition storage sites  back during ww2 and is now mostly restored using the fees that people use to get into it, the guys had to wear yarmulkes in order to enter it. The interior was brightly colored yellow and fabrics covered the room a lot and where marked with flowers and rather people-less pictures because of the rules of Judaism.

The cemetery was a whole other view on its own, it was several hundred tombstones lined up across the courtyard with Hebrew lettering on them and had multiple stones on them, as according to Jewish tradition. Yet what was really astounding about the cemetery was actually the back wall. The entire back wall of the place was covered with broken pieces of the fallen tombstones that were broken at the end of the war and the locals used these chunks to build and rebuild certain structures.

Overall I had a really fun time and inspiring day today.

—Abdul


What's up you guys! Well let me tell you, Krakow is by far one of the most beautiful cities I have seen in my entire life. 

In order to understand the true beauty of Krakow, I have to compare it to something else. And I guess I'll do that with Berlin. Both cities were very beautiful in their own way. Berlin was filled with organized streets and the great contrast between both the West and East side. The East side had such different types of buildings, which looked dull but clearly from the DDR, whereas West Berlin looked modern and in my opinion, more elegant. While this contrast was nice to look like, the big tall buildings that were all throughout the city took away the beauty of this and the beauty of the city in general. It's like in Boston, we're so accustomed to tall buildings and apartments. Although it's nice walking down Newburgh street or through downtown, it's a very nice change to have a different setting.

Krakow was absolutely breathtaking. All the buildings were so beautiful and colorful. You don't really see that in Boston let alone the churches or castles. I'm not entirely sure why it caught my eye. It kind of reminded me of medieval times and the city looked so uniformed, no apartment or building out of place. There were large plazas where people could walk and spend time with family and small narrow street with polish shops on both streets. I think that's why I liked it so much. There was so much open space and activity in one place. It seemed like all of Krakow was in one place enjoying their stay or their life. Although I know that we only visited one specific part if Krakow and maybe not the more industrialized area, the area we saw really showed me what rest of the city is or what I hoped it would be like. 

The main plaza was filled with street vendors selling flowers and paintings while  pigeons were flying all over, meanwhile each one of us were praying not to be attacked by one of them. If you walked a little more there was a less populated plaza which was smaller but just as beautiful. I was so glad that the weather got better as the day went out because seeing both plazas in the bright sun made everything even more beautiful.

At the end of the day, my friends and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful day we had, so we went to a park nearby the hotel. There was a man there who was playing the piano and we left our stuff near us, of course supervised, and danced not to far from him. A man sitting near us has begun watching our magnificent spectacular and was amused by our dancing. He smiled and laugh while we danced like goofs. While he and others enjoyed the sight, others didn't. A woman had even spoken to us in polish telling us something and once we told her we spoke English she proceeded to scream at us to stop. How rude! Other than that, Krakow was a beautiful city, one which I won't forget. 

​--Rafaela