Blame Canada

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Well, it has been quite a couple days as I guess some of you might have heard! Just to catch you up, here is a synopsis of my trip thus far and the difficulty I had just making it to Krakow.

Tuesday night I flew out of KCI to Toronto on Air Canada to catch a connecting flight to London. That flight barely made it to London on time and we ran through the airport and customs to get to our gate. Fortunately (we thought) the flight was going to be delayed "just a few minutes" because apparently our plane had gone into the domestic flight area on accident. The flight was originally supposed to take off at 11:10, but that was subsequently changed to 12:15 to 12:45 to 1:30 to 5:30 to, finally, 9:00 am the next morning. So, I ended up spending the night in the Toronto airport knowing full well I was going to miss the flight I booked with another airline out of London as we weren't going to arrive until around 8:45 pm, Wednesday night.

I ended up getting into London around 9:30 pm Wednesday night and, thankfully, I was able to get in touch with my friend Mike that is working over there. He graciously offered to pick me up and we went back to his place in Reading (a suburb just outside of London). I got online and couldn't find any flights to Krakow, but was able to find something into Warsaw on Thursday morning, so I went ahead and booked it. I flew Polish Airlines from London Heathrow to Warsaw---the food on the flight was awful! Once I got to Warsaw I took a bus to the train station and then got a ticket from Warsaw to Krakow---purchasing the ticket and getting on the train was not easy as very few people there spoke English! It was about a three-hour train ride and it was actually very nice. I could just stand outside my compartment and see the countryside.

At around 9:00 pm Thursday night I finally arrived in Krakow, just about 24 hours later than I originally expected. When I got into town I walked to my hostel, met my friend Kip.

Just a few quick observations I've had:

- I sat by a Canadian woman and a British woman on my two flights out here and both of them were fascinated with our upcoming election. They both brought it up and were asking me questions about it.

- For the most part everyone I met has been very friendly and helpful, especially in Warsaw where hardly anything was in English. I would just point to my train ticket and they would tell me where to go

- A lot of people speak at least some very limited English. I think in any sort of services industry it's almost a requirement.

- I don't like Air Canada. After all of our trouble they gave us a $70 voucher to fly again on Air Canada some time. As Tom, a British guy in our hostel, would say, "not bloodly likely!"


Our hostel is very nice. We are right in the middle of Krakow's Main Town Square. There are about 30 people there and Kip and I share a three-bunk-bed room with three girls from Ireland and a guy from Canada. There are several people from England, one guy who has traveled so much I think he knows more about the US than I do. The city is definitely bustling at night. It seemed like there was a separate young crowd that started filling the streets around 11:00. I'll do a separate entry tomorrow on some of the stuff we have seen/done and what we plan to do. Tomorrow we are going to take a day trip to Auschwitz.

Well, that's it for now, I'll be in touch!

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Photos

Toronto Airport
Trying to get some sleep in the Toronto Airport

Toronto Airport
Spent over eleven hours in this area

Warsaw
Not sure what this is, but I had an hour before my train left and it looked big and nice