I am truly exhausted. I'm now back from Krakow and am about to embark on a trip to Edinburgh, and all I want to do right now is sleep. I've had the most vile cold imaginable - got it just before leaving for Poland. Not fun at all. Amazingly enough, none of the other girls I was staying with had caught it by the time we left - so I was the only croaky one.
But I did enjoy it. It is Krakow's 750 year anniversary this year too, and we arrived just at the start of a weeks worth of celebrations. There were concerts in the square every night, and bunting everywhere.
Day 4 Morning saw myself, Zoe, Kirsten and Sally visit the Wawel Hill Castle .... oh boy, I was in love! My first experience of a true castle, lived in by royalty for generations, and I was entranced. It even had a resident dragon at one stage, whom a Shepard made to explode in exchange for the Princess's Hand in Marriage by feeding the beast sulfur! Very Cool Indeed!
After visiting the Castle, Sal, Kirsten and I went on a hunt for ice cream as the day had really heated up. It was over 35 or so, and we had a little heat stroke! And the girls found the most amazing place! It sold sorbet, but not ordinary sorbet - I had orange sorbet, served in a frozen orange!! And Sal had half a pineapple. It was amazing, and really delicious!
After that, we had a wander through the Cloth Halls, which is a kind of market for tourists, but sells mainly amber jewellery. I bought a lovely necklace with orange, green and yellow amber, with matching earrings. There was some amazing stuff on display. I didn't even know that amber came in green! It's pretty rare, so not a surprise. But it also comes in rose and gold too. Lovely!
Day 4 Afternoon saw everyone to the Wedding. And the girls hired a horse driven carriage to take us there! It was a traditional Catholic service, conducted in Polish, but very understandable. And the choir was beautiful - they sang some very haunting tunes reminiscent of Gregorian chant.
After the ceremony, everyone gave flowers and presents to the Bride and Groom right out side the church, and then we all walked to the reception place which was in an underground restaurant! This was at approximately 5, and they stuffed four courses into us by the time we got to 7.30 and kept feeding us ever after. I think there were eight courses that I counted, and there were supposed to be another 2 but they cancelled them as by that stage it was 2.30am and everyone wanted to go home!
Ah, but they also fed everyone alcohol. Loads of red and white wine, and bottle after bottle of vodka. It literally didn't stop coming. There were still full bottles - and very worse for ware people - at the end of the night.
It was a lot of fun though. They had a couple of folk dance teachers come in and the entire party learnt about 6 Polish folk dances. The groom's sister and her partner also gave a display of very passionate tango dancing and they had a live band for the bits in between. Everyone had a great time. Some, a little more than others - Sally and Cassie were both casualties of the dreaded drink! :) Kirsten and I took Sal home at about 12.30 and then went back to the party. I'm glad I got invited!
Day 5 was very lazy. I visited the castle again and went to the bits I'd missed the day before, wandered around the square, ate Polish dumplings, listened to another concert, drank beer and did a little shopping. Generally relax and recuperate... which I still need to do because I am still very tired.
I have to go and pack for Edinburgh now. Gosh it's a hard life! :)
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