Catch up

Well! It has been a ridiculously long time since my last post since we have one internet connection and 42 people who want it. So, here's some quick updates.

Poland Day 7:

We toured Krakow today. We saw several beautiful churches, and I got some lovely photos of the city buildings. I’ll put a few of them below, though I am pressed for time because we are leaving for Altensteig in 20 minutes (delayed blog entry, I’m actually in Germany). We had a lot of free time for shopping and great Italian food. I hurt my foot somehow, but it isn’t too bad. Just pulled the muscle a little or something. The next few weeks will be short, random blog entries and email responses because there is little internet access. I may have internet in Freiburg and Rome next week, we’ll see.

Germany Day 1:

Hallo aus Deutschland! We had a 6am flight this morning which meant waking up at 3 to get to the airport and through customs on time, and that was cutting it close. So now we are at Hornberg castle in Germany. It’s a very pretty area; though there are three showers with no separators and 3 people in a dorm sized room.

I did some exploring and took some photos of butterflies and bees, see below. I also found a lovely secluded reading spot since alone time is rare here.

Short blog entry since I haven’t done much yet. They will be sparse from here on out since there is no internet at the Castle.

Germany Day 2:

We had some lectures this morning and then had a tour of Altensteig this afternoon. Altensteig is pretty little, and a 6 km walk down, up, then down hill again. I really hope we don't have to walk to it again. I picked up some food for this weekend, which involves far more nutella than it should. They make nutella cereal, it's like little wheat pillows filled with nutella. I also bought a wrap for my foot, because I pulled a muscle or something in Krakow. Other than that, it was a relatively chill day.

Germany Day 3:

Today we went on an absolutely beautiful hike through the black forest. It was misty and VERY cold, but there were stunning views and a lake that we went to. In the afternoon we saw an area that a massive storm had passed through. It looked similar to the tornado area that I worked in this summer. 

Germany Day 4:

This morning we went to the Schmalz vacuum industrial plant. The green tactics they use to run everything are amazing. The plant has it's own wind, water, solar, and biomass power plants so they don't need to use any oil for heat. The owner came and talked to us for a while, which is impressive considering he has 600+ employees to look after. We also got free keychains of little suction cups, it was funny to watch college students act like 5 year olds with a new toy.

Then in the afternoon we did more old forest touring and learned about a lot of forest management. I thought I would get bored of all of the forestry but it has actually been fascinating, they have such a different view point than us. They cut down only the largest trees, no more than new growth compensates for, and only cut down the trees that have natural regeneration around them. They cut down the worst quality first so their kids can have the best trees. I wish we had similar habits of forward thinking in the US.

We had a Schnapps tasting this evening, but I spent most of my time at the distillery petting the horses. The cherry schnapps tasted like pepto bismol. The vanilla and chocolate were fantastic though.

Germany Day 5: (Thursday)

We went bird watching in the rain today, and thoroughly pissed off our professor. We were cold and the tour guide spoke too quietly for all but the people right next to him to hear. So I asked him permission to go take pictures and he said yes. The professor just thought I was being rude and wouldn't listen to my attempt to explain that I had permission. He has been cranky ever since, and it is very annoying that the leader of the group gets to be so petty. 

We went to a nature center in the afternoon, which was very cool. It was a school of ornithology, and was fascinating. Our tour guide was a 20 something from Kentucky and we were all confused when he started speaking. He answered all of my questions and gave me his email so I can ask about internships for next summer.

Then we went to the Singen station and dropped off 3/4 of our group so they could go to other cities/countries. 

Germany Day 6:

Today was arguably one of the best days of the entire trip. This morning, Tina Kling was kind enough to pick me and Heather up at the castle. I met her on a website called couch surfing, essentially you find people in places you are travelling to host you in return for offering to host other people yourself. She offered to take us to see the town, and was an absolute sweetheart. She even took us to her house, which was gorgeous. It even had two ponds in the back yard, complete with cattails and lillies. Her parents came back laughing as we were attempting to catch a newt in a net when they returned. We had to explain that we were wildlife majors (Joelle and Bob had joined us at this point, we picked them up at the grocery store and spared them the walk home) and they talked to us for a long time about what Europe used to be like. 

I have never met more hospitable people. Tina is a sweetheart, she gave us a tour of the old town and interpreted at the pharmacy for us. The pharmacy people gave us free sore throat meds and cough syrup when we bought the industrial sized pack of cold meds since Bob and I are both sick. Tomorrow her family is offering to drive us to Altensteig so we can go to the train station and go to the Stuttgart zoo.

I fell asleep at 7pm and woke up at 6am on Saturday, oooh geez. You know you are sick when.

(Pictures are taking forever to upload, I'll try it on a different internet connection later.)

Day 6: When we were supposed to go to Auschwitz.

Let's start off by mentioning it was a high of 91 degrees in Krakow today, and the bus had no air conditioning or windows. It was easily 100 degrees on it. This is a very key point for later in the post.

We started the day with lectures and a tour of a desert/forest/tree plantation. It was too hot and rather uninteresting. Except they have a giant dump for heavy metals like lead and arsenic that we got to see.

Nothing like giant hills of poison to start the day! But it only gets better. A girl started to get sick on the bus. She was crying, and turning bright red, and had trouble walking. So we had to pull the bus over and take her outside to lay down and cool off. In the mean time, some passerby called the cops on us saying there were "kids playing on the road" so a Polish cop comes up, breathalyzes our bus driver, and asks Kasia a lot of questions about why we didn't call the Polish 911.

So eventually she takes a taxi and we go to a nearby McDonalds to meet a new bus with air conditioning. We ate dinner, got awesome glass coke cups, and got on the new bus. It had pink curtains, and we dumped it the Pimp Mobster Bus.

When his phone rang, it was the sound of bullets. His phone was also gold bling. He wore gold chains, and there were feathers above his window and a lot of other random sketchy decorations.

So there we were, back in Krakow, having not seen Auschwitz because despite the fact that the girl got a taxi home we still had to drive the 40 minutes back instead of the hour to the concentration camp. Everyone was disappointed, but at least we got impromptu free time.

We decided to spend it downtown, where we saw these fake statues.

And a fantastic dance troupe.

And this guy with fire batons.

Overall a very eventful day. Finally got caught up with blog posts, now time for facebook and Flickr.

Oh, and for your enjoyment, I bring you a chicken in a box and the dreadlock mullet.

Poland Days 4 and 5

Day 4!

This entry is two days because yesterday was crazy. Most people climbed up a mountain, or to a lake halfway up the mountain. We took the pleasant valley/shopping route because I didn't feel like a ridiculous hike afterwards. It was pretty nice!

These are the mountains they had to climb. I liked the view from the bottom well enough.

We were in a town with my last name in it! See? Koscielisko!

We had a very pleasant day in the park until about 2pm. Then we went shopping in the town, where I picked up a few souvenirs, using Polish! The views in the park were fantastic, gorgeous rock cliffs and caves.

This was a cave about 40 feet up with a statue of Mary. If you zoom in on her waist, there is something that looks like a bullet hole.

This is me and Kasia, the tour guide/my new awesome Polish friend. Have I mentioned gorgeous views yet? It really is a beautiful country.

We had a nice long chance to shop after the hike, which was lovely. I wanted to take one of these horse carts, but they were expensive. Everyone was exhausted, hot, and sore when they got back from their climb. Then we had to sit on a bus for two hours with extremely hot and smelly people to get to Krakow.

Even with the dual day post I'm still a day behind. Sorry, updating as fast as possible!

Day 5: Salt mines!

Meet the 70 stairway hike down to the Wieliczka salt mines! It was a god send after the 90 degree weather we've been having.

This is a statue made of salt of Copernicus. There are a lot of salt statues on there. You are not allowed to lick those, but you can lick the walls.

This is a salt statue of the King. I'll be honest, I'm not sure the king of what, or why he got a statue, but I'm assuming there is a good reason.

This princess threw her wedding ring into a salt mine as a gesture of luck or promise, then it was found in the first salt mined from the one built in her town. Again, I could have the story a bit off, but that was the basic idea.

These are statues of some tourists that were lost in the 1900s. The tour guide never explained whether their bodies were found.

This is by far the coolest part of the salt mine. A GIANT underground church, where all of the decorations were built by 3 miners. Every piece of the chandelier is salt crystal, every statue is made of salt. I will just put pictures here because words really don't describe it. Plus I had to pay 10 zloty for the right to take these, though a few people chipped in.

Keep in mind that everything above is made of salt, the chandelier above included. Mmm, tasty.

So when we left the mine, Kyle left his mark, and I left mine. A long time ago Simone and I joked about leaving the Seal of Approval everywhere in our travels all over the world. So here is my beginning to it, 70 stories deep in a salt mine!

Day 3: Poland

We're only halfway through the day but I feel the need to do a blog update because so much happened this morning!

We woke up and caught a small shrew, which was absolutely adorable. Only two animals in 60 traps, don't ask me why. I guess the people who were trying to see hedgehogs at 3 in the morning had no luck though.

So this morning we went to see a castle and a dam. The castle was smaller on the inside than I expected, but very interesting. There was a guy in a hooded robe running around with an ax, I think maybe I should have worried. The view from the top was absolutely gorgeous. Have I mentioned I want to move here? There was a jail and kitchen from what I could tell. Apparently we just missed a 2000 person reenactment of a 6000 troop battle that happened at the castle hundreds of years ago.

Kashka says I am getting better at my Polish, I have memorized every phrase she taught me so far. It's a very interesting language, though tough to pick up because of how quickly people speak. I bought ice cream on my own today though, using Polish, which sounds silly but was an exciting  moment.

All of the buildings here are incredibly quaint. I feel like I am living in a painting or something.

Next we went to the dam, where a cross eyed polish man was drawing. Then all of a sudden, he pulls out an animal skin, which we figure out is a goat. Then we realize in place of it's head and feet are the parts of a very unique looking bagpipe. Fortunately for you, I have a video of him playing a goat!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoMKHV2lB-Y

Then he decided I needed to try it. Then it sounded like a dying goat! I couldn't stop laughing the entire time. It was so hard to play, I couldn't see where to put my fingers on the flute part.

That was about it for that day, now time to write the next one!

Mountain Climb

Dzień dobry! Day two in Poland, though it feels like a week or so. My Polish language skills are increasing quickly, tak? Mostly because our guide, Kashka, (Kate in Polish!) has been teaching me a lot of phrases. She might visit us in Point some time.

First today we took some water flow measurements at the river. The view was spectacular.


Then after lunch we had a rather difficult mountain climb, and one girl nearly had a panic attack because she was pushing herself too hard. So now we're climbing buddies and take lots of breaks. 


Then we caught a lot of bugs and collected plants at the top. Lots of pictures up on Flickr soon. 

There are a lot of animals here, both wild and domestic. We have seen voles, cows, cats (kot), dogs (pies. Yes, Pies, but said pee-ehs, not like the food.), and of course sheep. There was also this lizard.

The river meandered down the mountain, with marvelous miniature waterfalls. We got to drink out of the stream at the top, it is basically the only clean water in Poland.

The view from the top was stunning! It took a lot of work to get there, though.

We did have one issue getting back though. A herd of sheep was blocking the bus! They barely trotted, they didn't seem bothered at all. Some of the locals sprayed water on them with a hose to try to get them to move, but they didn't seem to feel like going anywhere quickly.

I am amazed by how cheap everything is here. It is about $1=3 Polish Zloty. Except a bar of candy is still only about 1,6 Zloty, which makes it 50 cents for chocolate. Yep, I'm in heaven. I got everything below for only $4.

Well, it's nearly midnight and I should be asleep. Dowidzenia!

Planes and Poland

Well, I am sitting in my room in Poland! It was such a long flight, and I don't think any of us were able to sleep more than 3 hours. We had lectures from 3-8 as well, with dinner in between, and everyone was fighting the urge to sleep. You know, when you're so exhausted you get to the point where your head drops every time you close your eyes even just to blink.

The view from the plane sure was cool though. I made an attempt to sleep through most of it. It was very very cold though.

Welcome to Krakow!

The views are stunning here. A beautiful river, huge hills/mountains. Everything is green and the houses are so picturesque. There are sheep in the back yard. No, really.

Sheep!

We're also going to a castle soon. But I'm going to head out and hang out with people downstairs. One last picture for you!

Welcome to Polska! What a cool castle.