Krakow Day 1: Arrival

As I mentioned in my last post (which sadly was about 3 weeks ago) I visited Krakow and Auschwitz October 23-27 as part of a program called the Auschwitz Jewish Center for Students Abroad. If you are thinking about going abroad and are reading this, I would highly recommend the program for the reasons that I will talk about if you keep reading. 

Thursday I had to miss class a couple of times, which wasn't a problem, because I had a flight at 2:30 from Munich (Just kidding it got delayed until 4). I had a feeling the flight from Munich to Krakow would be an interesting one so I decided to purchase some good karma in the form of going to retrieve this old lady's coat about 30 gates away because she forgot it when we were moved gates. This is not a humble brag (or is it?), but the good karma will come in handy later. Stay tuned. 

I flew Lufthansa, and they redeemed themselves delaying my flight by providing us with the most fancy free snack I have heard of on a flight. So in case you are keeping score at home, Lufthansa is currently +1 in my book because of this free deliciousness and I did not really care about the delayed flight, but don't worry, they will realize their grave error of good customer service (a well known no-no in the airline industry) and will soon stick it to the little man (that's me). Stay tuned for information.

Was it really nonstop me Lufthansa? Was it really?

This was it. Delicious

I thought these clouds were nice. Side note, it wasn't nearly as nice below the clouds that day

Anyways I landed in Krakow and took a bus to the city center. I originally planned on walking from the bus station to the hostel but it was dark and raining and I only had 30 minutes to arrive at the hostel and meet the group and leave for dinner. I therefore went to go buy a tram ticket, but of course the machine was broken and therefore only displaying in Polish. But then the tram arrived, so I hopped on it anyways without a ticket and hoped that Polish policeman occasionally accept good karma instead of tram tickets as a form of payment. It is only 5 stops what are the chances? But then bad news! I took the tram the wrong direction 3 stops (did you know all polish words look the same?). So I got off and waited and eventually got to the hostel without getting caught and five minutes to spare. I settled into my room, which was supposed to be for 4 people but I was the only one in it. So that was luxurious. 

Then I met the gang and our program director. The gang was 10 or 12 girls from Meredith College in North Carolina (an all girls school). Our program director was surprisingly young and really nice. We then departed for a 13:1 girl to guy ratio dinner. We ate what I am told was traditional Polish food, which consisted of some noodles stuffed with either cheese, spinach, or meat depending on what you had. I think I ate about 15-20 because they were delicious. Also salad and other stuff. It was all good. We introduced ourselves formally like you always have to do at the beginning of any new adventure, with the usual name, city, college. All was well. It was fun.

For the second day of the trip/tour of Krakow, read the next blog. If I was technically competent I would make a link and you could click it, but I am not, so deal with it