EBS en France: Une visite de Marion, Cracovie, et Auschwitz-Birkenau

Alors! Again, sorry for the delay between entries -- the spring has turned out to be quite busy! Which has been great, but also very tiring and doesn't leave me much time for blogging!

This past Tuesday, Marion (my aunt) arrived from CT -- we've been having a great time lots of walking, sightseeing, and lots of delicious food. Tuesday when she arrived, we went for a nice long walk around my neighborhood (the weather has been absolutely amazing) -- i showed her the Tour Eiffel and we walked by the Ecole Militaire, and then up to the Seine and back by the Hotel des invalides. For dinner, i had looked up a restaurant on the other side of the Champs de Mars -- Les Cocottes (http://www.maisonconstant.com/fr_cocottes.htm) which was absolutely lovely. We sat at the long counter, and i had a delicious soup with little pieces of duck, and then a salad (which i can't seem to remember more about since we've eaten so much other delicious food since then!). But we both had a wonderful meal -- and i would definitely recommend it. Seemed a little touristy, but the food was still good.

Wednesday, i had two classes -- so in between then, i came back and met Marion for lunch. We went to a nice cafe in the Place Cambronne called Le Square Cafe. i actually went there with my parents when they were here, so i knew that the food was decent! After a nice lunch, we took the metro to Montparnasse to wander around a bit more, and then print out our boarding passes at Reid Hall. The weather, again, was spectacular -- and we definitely took advantage of it! After my class at Catho, we actually walked back home -- we stopped at the restaurant Suffren for a little something to eat -- i had the terrine de compagne, which is pretty much always reliably delicious!

Thursday, i swam early in the morning (as i had been the two days before as well), and then came back home to finish packing so that Marion and i could leave on time for our flight to Krakow! i introduced Marion to some new travel experiences, including the trip to and experience at Paris Beauvais airport -- which definitely earns its names as Paris' low cost airport. Our flight was on RyanAir which doesn't have assigned seats -- and so we made a run for it! The flight wasn't that full, so we lucked out by getting an aisle and window seat with no one in between us!

We were met by a taxi upon our arrival in Krakow, and he took us directly to our hotel, Cracowdays. it was an absolutely lovely place -- great bed and breakfast. Our room was enormous and clean, the service was great, and the array of foods at breakfast each morning was pretty incredible! We settled into our room, and then after a little bit, we walked to the main square of the city and had dinner at a restaurant called Wesele. it was a fun place -- with traditional Polish food. i had pierogis topped with crispy onions and little bits of bacon -- yum! We also split one of their "traditional" desserts which is a piece of cheesecake that's served warm and then has a thin layer of bittersweet chocolate on the top. it was interesting! Probably not my favorite way to have cheesecake, but i am glad i tried it.

Friday! One of the main reasons that i wanted to go to Krakow was to see the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. So that's what we did on Friday. We bought tickets for the Crakow Tours visit which turned out to be a very good idea. They took us there on a bus, split us up into groups with tour guides and then took us back to Krakow. All in all -- it was a very long day, but thorougly fascinating in a terrible way. i won't really go into details, but i would say that if you have the opportunity to go, it really is an eye opening experience. it is something that cannot be imagined without visiting a place like this. i did take a few pictures, but felt a little odd about doing so. i'll just include the one of what most consider the most "famous" view at Birenkau (Auschwitz 2).

After a long day, we headed back to the hotel to put our feet up and then went across the street to a restaurant that's actually number 1 on TripAdvisor for restaurants in Krakow -- Zielona Kuchnia. it was absolutely delightful -- a small but very modern place with sort of European fushion food. i started with three little pieces of toast topped with spinach, raisins, and melted parmesan cheese. Sounds like an odd combination but it was actually really tasty -- and then i kept seeing it on menus, so i assume that it's another Polish specialty. For my dinner, i ordered the duck which came sliced and then topped with a sauce of oranges, pomegranate seeds and cinnamon. Then on the side, there were potato wedges with little bits of chorizo sausage. So delicious.

Saturday (or yesterday), according to Marion's pedometer, we walked more than 22,000 steps! Which apparently translates into more than 8 miles! We started out around 11am, and we found the Starbucks in the Galeria Krakowska (the enormous shopping mall) so that i could do my obligatory stop for tourist mugs....i am building up quite the collection. From there, we continued to make a circle around the city and down towards the Wawel Castle. The weather was again, gorgeous, and so we decided to not waste our time by going inside. We basically just kept walking around -- saw the fire breathing dragon -- and pretty much all the major stuff.

Krakow's main square

The castle

We went for lunch at a place called Miod Malina, which was actually a sister restaurant of the restaurant where we ate the first night. it again served mostly Polish food -- and so i tried their potato pancakes with sour cream, and a nice salad with beef tenderloin and and a raspberry dressing (i don't know if that was traditional Polish, but it was still yummy!).

From lunch, we walked down across the river to the old Schidler's Factory which is now a museum about the Nazi occupation of Krakow. The museum was a bit disorganized, but overall still really interesting and depressing. We walked back to the hotel via the main square for one last look -- we attempted to find some postcards but were not successful! But after out 8 mile day, we were a bit fatiguees! We hung out for a bit before walking up the street for an italian dinner at Mamma Mia which was actually really good! i had a nice fresh pasta dish with tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and garlic, while Marion had a quattro fromage pizza. Both were great!

Today, we left the hotel after breakfast around 8:45 and went to the airport. Fairly uneventful trip back! But we finally made it home around 3pm and i spent the afternoon doing homework and then we had a lovely dinner here with Marilu and Alain.