That's On Our List!

June 28

Arriving a bit disheveled, I was super pumped that we had booked an extra night in the hotel and were able to check in a little before 9am. We got a few hours of sleep before stumbling down to the lobby to meet back up with Jacob who had been up for a few hours and was already working on a couple beers.

With just 24 hours in the city, we wanted to see the old town and check out as much as we could, while still catching some futbol, of course.

Finland is super into gay pride month with flags and banners everywhere we went. A bit of a change from Russia…

First stop – the food stalls down on the harbor which were serving some delicious salmon and whatever these tiny fried fish are.

Then we grabbed some ice cream and jumped on a tour boat to see the city by water. The area was beautiful, but the most amazing part of it was that within just ten or so minutes we were in complete isolation; the city had completely disappeared and all that was left was lush, beautiful islands.

The tour didn’t give a ton of information but two items that I picked up:

1. During prohibition in Finland (which was 1919-1932), smugglers would bring ships of alcohol into the harbor. If they were caught, they would throw all of their alcohol overboard. But that booze would be tied to bags of salt. The goods would sink to the bottom of the sea, so the smugglers could not be caught. After the salt dissolved, the crates of alcohol would start to float and once it came to the top of the water at some later time, the smugglers would conveniently be there to pick it all up and continue on with their journey.

2. During WWII, Finland originally sided with the Germans, so the Soviets came in to bomb Helsinki. Locals went out to uninhabited islands and lit huge fires to misdirect the bombers. Apparently only 5% of the Soviet bombings were successful.

After the boat tour, we popped over to a bar to watch Colombia’s defeat over Senegal… and to have a few local beers.

With an early flight the next morning to meet up with some family in Oslo, the three of us took an early dinner before

The meal was great – Michael and Jacob both had reindeer steaks. The only other thing to note was the super Finnish guy who worked there. When we arrived a few minutes after our reservation, I apologized for being a “few minutes late”. He responded with, “you’re twenty minutes late”. Ok buddy, no need to be so specific. Haha.

A shout out to Jacob – we had a great couple of days hanging out with you! Thanks for killing it with us in Russia!

We got up the next morning super early to grab our flight to Oslo. It was one of the few times in the past eight months that we have been truly stuck in the rain as we walked to get our bus. We were completely drenched by the time we got on the bus and stayed pretty wet until we were through security and waiting for our flight.

Feeling a bit like we’re living on the struggle bus, after our hour flight to Oslo, we popped into the Raddison Hotel that is connected to the airport. We grabbed a fairly cheap “day room” where we got naps, used the gym and showered again before meeting up with some of our favorite people. It was really just the ticket to prepare us for nine days with two of our favorite sobrinos.

June 25-27

With another free day in the city, we went out to explore a bit. Our first stop was to St. Isaac’s Cathedral which is the largest cathedral in Russia.

This cathedral was built in 1710 under orders by Tsar Alexander I. There are two things to do in this cathedral: climb up to the rotunda for a great view of the city and visit the inside of the cathedral. First, we made the climb.

Then we checked out the inside.

After the cathedral, we went a few blocks over for lunch. Weird service at lunch. Michael and Jacob both had a starter and a main dish. I ordered only a main dish. Here is the order in which we were served, with 5-10 minutes between each dish’s arrival: Jacob’s soup, Jacob’s beef stroganoff, Michael’s main dish which was a panicked decision with salmon, Michael’s starter of buffalo wings. Then we waited twenty or so minutes and my kebab came out.

That was followed by drinks on a roof deck bar which had less eccentric service. Another great view!

Michael’s new shirt:

It reads: The most polite of people.

That night, Michael and Jacob hung out while I went to the theater to see the ballet!

I was incredibly excited to see the Russian ballet. I wanted to get dressed up which is possible with the clothes and shoes I have, but usually when Michael and I get dressed up, I don’t take a purse because I don’t have a nice one. That means Michael carries all of our stuff. But if I’m flying solo then I need another option. Insert my makeup bag doubling as a clutch:

The ballet was performing Don Quixote. Here is a picture of the stage with the curtain down.

I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the performance, so you’ll have to just go see it for yourself one day. The costumes were beautiful, with intense reds, yellows and oranges to depict the Spanish influences associated with the story. And the dancing was incredible. I have only seen a few ballets in my life – perhaps the Nutcracker a few times – but this was breath taking. I had a wonderful time and the nearly 3 hour performance just flew by.

Afterwards, I met back up with Michael and Jacob and we took a white night boat ride along the city’s canals. That’s right – we started a boat tour at 12:30 at night. Even though it wasn’t completely dark yet (or ever since we’re so far north) we got to experience the raising of the city’s draw bridges.

It was a really cool experience and definitely high on the list of things we’d recommend everyone do if they’re in St. Petersburg.

The next morning we grabbed some runs and then got ready for the big Argentina v. Nigeria game. The city had been overtaken by tourists in Argentina jerseys the past couple of days, so we knew that there was going to be a lot of energy for this game.

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Michael and I had tickets, but Jacob didn’t, so he crafted a bilingual sign and ended up getting some tickets from a group of older Argentinians. My Spanish put to good use!

Jacob’s new Argentinian friends that he watched the game with:

The fans were crazy and everyone was just pumped to be there.

Argentina won the match two to one. Messi had the first goal at 14 minutes. This goal is really beautiful. The way that Messi handles the bar is incredible. Michael must have watched this clip 100 times.

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Victor Moses for Nigeria scored off a penalty shot next at 51 minutes and Marcos Rojo for Argentina scored at 86 minutes.

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There weren’t many Nigerian fans, but even after their loss, they were still in great spirits and were having a lot of fun.

After the game, we headed back into the city. People were standing around, cheering in the public space.

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We hung out for awhile, but left when the riot police showed up. Not interested in that. This game was the coolest sporting event I have ever been to in my life.

The next day was a travel day. Jacob took a flight to Helsinki while Michael and I were scheduled for a 9pm overnight bus to Helsinki. That gave us time to watch the Mexico v. Sweden game. We found a great bar that was filled with Mexico fans.

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Mexico lost 3-0 but Korea beat Germany which allowed Mexico to move on to the next round. Nothing better than a room full of Mexico fans chanting “Korea” over and over again.

After this, Michael and I went to get on our 9pm overnight bus which ended up being a horrible 11pm overnight minivan experience. We had about 4 hours of waiting at the borders and a van without reclining seats and a group of Argentinians who were still excited from the game the day before who talked the ENTIRE night. We arrived in Helsinki super cranky a little after 8am (verses the expected 4am arrival) without having had any sleep. Bad ending to an amazing visit to Russia. I’m not sure these posts properly explain what an amazing experience we had between the games, the ballet, the sights we saw, and the overall feel of the city. We had way too much fun and loved being at the World Cup!

June 23-24

Staying out until 3am should mean a late morning… but we had a 10:45am walking tour booked, and only 1 shower for four people, so my alarm went off at 9:15am. Too early.

But I’m so glad we got up for it.

The tour guide, a young local, was energetic and funny. She walked us around quite a few sites. We started outside the Winter Palace which was the former official residence of the Russian Royal family from the 1700s to 1917.

It’s most famously associated with Catherine the Great who was responsible for the large acquisition of art that is held in the Royal Hermitage museum, right next door to the palace. Our tour guide told the story of the Russian Revolution when Nicholas II, his immediate family and several servants were slaughtered. She mentioned that although DNA testing has proven that Anastasia was also killed, she prefers to believe the Disney movie that she got away and lived a happy life. I liked that.

How great is that teal color? The building was painted yellow for awhile and then a brown/red color before being painted the current color in the 20th century. This color was chosen as a tribute to Catherine the Great, since it was her favorite color.

In the Palace Square stands the Alexander Column which is 47.5 meters high and celebrates Russia’s victory over Napoleon. The monument is topped with an angel that is holding a cross, but the impressive thing about it is that the column is made of one solid piece of marble, weighing over 600 tons. The column is held up entirely by its own weight and was lifted without cranes or modern machinery. Apparently when it was first installed, the locals were too afraid to enter the square, out of concern the column was going to fall. So to calm their fears, the tsar spent hours each day, for weeks, walking his dog in circles around the base of the column to prove that St. Petersburg’s citizens shouldn’t be concerned.

She talked about all of these buildings across the river. I have no information to relay to you about them. It was a group of like 50 people, so I only heard half of what she said.

Here is a shot of St. Isaac’s Cathedral:

A few days later, we went to visit the inside of the Cathedral, but we did learn some interesting facts from the walking tour. Apparently, during the siege of St. Petersburg by Nazi Germany, while the entire city was bombed, two buildings were excluded. One was St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

St. Isaac’s Cathedral was spared because of the large gold plated dome, which the Germans used for directional purposes when flying overhead and bombing the city. Eventually, the citizens figured out that the Germans were using the building for their benefit and covered up the golden dome to make it more difficult for them to navigate the city from above.

The second building that was not bombed was the Hotel Astoria:

Apparently, Hitler was so convinced that Leningrad would fall quickly that invitations were printed in advance for a victory banquet at the hotel. The siege lasted nearly 900 days. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges ever, with Soviet forces ending the siege on January 27, 1944. It is expected that up to 1.5 million civilians and soldiers died during the siege with about 1.4 million evacuated. Many of those who were evacuated died from bombings and starvation. But despite all of this, at least we can be content that Hitler never was able to have his party?

A few blocks from the Winter Palace is a building that was built as the first free museum, called the New Hermitage, open to all citizens of the city. The catch was that people were required to dress up to visit and only rich people had the money to buy nice enough clothes to enter, thus still making the museum prohibitive to most people. Outside the museum are columns made to resemble fifteen foot tall statues of Atlas.

Two things to be said about these feet of Atlas:

1. If you rub the toes of the left foot of this specific statue, you will become rich. (Warning: I did it. About to make it rain.)

2. The cracks resulted when the palace, two blocks away, was bombed. The force was so great that it cracked all of these statues at the feet, although they didn’t fall.

Here is a statue of Peter the Great, called the Bronze Horseman.

Peter the Great was the founder of St. Petersburg. He captured the city from a Finnic tribe in 1703 during the Great Northern War. Slaves were brought in from all over Russia to build the city which became a grid of canals, mostly due to Peter’s love of Venice.

This sculpture was ordered by Catherine the Great who, for being one of the best known Russian leaders, was not actually Russian. She was German born and married to Peter III. She believed her husband to be weak, so she had him killed off and took the throne in 1762. Being some what self conscience that she wasn’t Russian, and having a great admiration for Peter the Great, she spent much of her reign trying to show connection between herself and Peter. On the statue you can see the first line of language says Peter. Believe me. That’s what it says. The second, slightly larger line of language says Catherine.

And the Nicholas I Monument:

What makes this statue unique is that the statue is only supported by the horse’s rear hooves (two points) which was a technological feat when the statue was unveiled in 1859. This picture isn’t the best angle to see that, but trust me – only two hooves touching. If you look again at the Bronze Horseman above, you’ll see that two horse hooves are touching the base along with the snake, giving it three points of support.

At this point we were two hours into a very crowded walking tour and ready for lunch, so we split off from the group and went to eat at a place called Made in China which served up some great Chinese cuisine.

After lunch we took some much needed naps before the next big event: cooking class! Andy did some research and found a class that taught dumplings and a traditional soup. They had run out of room in their kitchen, so they offered to teach the class in our kitchen at the Airbnb.

The class was awesome… mostly fueled by these cool Russian chicks, Irina and Katarina.

Realistically, the food was fine – not really my favorite and probably not something we’d ever recreate. But we had a blast. The soup, called okroshka, that we made was interesting. The ingredients: hard boiled egg, cucumber, ham, potatoes, scallions, mixed herbs, and radish.

And then the soup was served cold with one of two things – either a light yogurt or kvass. Kvass is a traditional Slavic fermented beverage made from rye bread. It tasted kind of like RC Cola that had been left open overnight. The dish with yogurt was pretty good. The kvass, less so.

Irina pouring in the kvass:

Mmmmm. Andy loves it – until he takes that first bite and switches over to the yogurt version along with me.

This was a liquor that the women brought along to share.

Fun fact: whoever opens the bottle in Russia and pours the first glass is the only person that is allowed to pour the rest of the bottle. So Irina opened the bottle and poured us all a shot of the berry drink. Then Jacob grabbed the bottle to pour out another round and got yelled at immediately by Irina. It was her bottle. If he wanted to open a second bottle, he could do it and be in charge of that bottle but this was hers to pour.

Another thing they noted was the importance of a toast. It was not acceptable to simply say “cheers” or some equivalent. Their toasts are required to be meaningful, every time.

Dumplings:

Another tradition: while making dumplings, one dumpling is made with a gross center and then cooked in with the rest. If you are “lucky” enough to get this dumpling, you get to make a wish on it. Our gross dumpling had gummy bears and pepper in it. Lucky for us, Irina got this one.

Afterwards, we found out that Katarina and Irina made a second gross dumpling with a ton of pepper. Irina got this one as well. Lots of wishes coming her way!

We spent a lot of time talking about life in St. Petersburg and what the women do for fun. Irina, the older of the two, is a big fan of the rooftop bars around the city (something we checked out a few nights later). Katarina loves one of the bar districts where she often goes to sing karaoke at the other Poison location. Yes – there are two! We knew there were two from a 3am Uber mishap the other night when Andy kept sending drivers to the other location to pick us up. Whoops. This is what happens when you don’t trust the GPS ball on your phone.

So, of course, knowing how good the Russians were from the other night, we forced Katarina to sing for us. She was great!

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After we finished up dinner, our cooking buddies left and the four of us got ready to head out. That night there was a huge celebration on the embankment with live music and fireworks for new graduates. There were also a ton of police presence for the event. They had this street completely shut down.

The party was going to be huge, but also exclusive. Only graduates, which meant that we were a few blocks away. hanging out and enjoying the great energy in the city. Michael and I did try to get a view of the fireworks, but couldn’t get terribly close.

Afterwards, we went back to meet up with Andy and Jacob. As luck would have it, while we were sitting at the bar, Katarina and Irina showed up! They joined us for a few drinks and after awhile, took us out to Katarina’s bar district to check out a different part of town…

And round two of Poison:

Do I need to say that we had a blast? Karaoke really is one of my favorite things to do. Even on a night like this, when I didn’t even get up to sing, I was just pumped to be singing along with others to great music and enjoying new friends. This Poison location, as opposed to the other, was filled with tourists – specifically Argentinian fans.

Andy got up to sing a time or two and Katarina rocked it.

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We had another “what time is it?!?!?!?” moment before ending our night around 6am with Jacob and Katarina singing Bohemian Rhapsody which was a huge hit. Then a long walk back to the apartment.

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Staying up until 6am with no scheduled walking tour means sleeping in until noon. Andy had to fly back to New York, unfortunately. It was fun getting to know him. He definitely was a huge value add to our Russian experience.

With nothing scheduled for the day, Jacob, Michael and I decided to wear sweats all day, work on the blog, watch futbol in our apartment, and send Michael out for meals. It was a perfect lazy day after a few late nights.

June 21-22

After a long bus ride from Tallinn, we arrived in St. Petersburg! World Cup!!!

Super low rise boats:

We got settled in, went grocery shopping and Michael cooked dinner while we waited for some friends to arrive to the Airbnb. We were being joined by Jacob, a friend from Chicago, and his college buddy, Andy, who lives in NY.

It was pretty late by the time Andy and Jacob arrived, so we had dinner, caught up and then went to bed. Wild and crazy times in Mother Russia!!

The next morning, Michael and I grabbed some runs before heading to our first of two World Cup games – Brazil verses Costa Rica!

The city was decked out in soccer decorations.

But the real show was the fans:

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The energy in the stadium was amazing! Everyone was just super excited to be there… including us!

The game was great. We were in a section that was pretty heavy Brazil, but there were some Ticos as well. It was a long and super stressful game. We were rooting for Brazil and were hoping to see Neymar score a goal. It was a long, scoreless game. Finally, Brazil scored a goal in the first minute of stoppage time, by Philippe Coutinho. Then Brazil got another goal in the seventh minute of stoppage – this goal was by Neymar in a penalty shot. We were jacked about it – despite the fact that everyone who saw it on television said it shouldn’t have been a penalty. From where we were sitting, you couldn’t really tell, so we were just excited for the Neymar goal.

After the game finished, as we went to leave the stadium, a strange thing happened. I think they were worried about crowd control, so they didn’t let us out of our seats for 10 minutes. This guy’s job was to block us in until his timer on his phone ran down. It was very strange.

That night, we met back up with Andy and Jacob who didn’t have tickets to the game, and hit the town. We went to a couple of bars before ending up at Poison – a karaoke bar. Awesome.

The bar was filled with Russians (no tourists except for us) but the songs were exclusively in English.

Some of the better performances? A woman who sang The Phantom of the Opera and this guy:

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Some of the lesser appreciated performances? Jacob singing Kid Rock “I’m a Cowboy” and my rendition of Mercedes Benz. It was such a hit in Kraków… not so much here.

So here’s the thing about Russia. At 3 in the morning, it’s still light outside. So when we walked out, it could have been 9:30 or 10 at night. It wasn’t. The energy was still good in the city – lots of people out and about. But it was way past our bedtime. Amazing night, but time for bed!

June 20

Another bus, another Eastern European country. This time we landed in Estonia – our last stop before the World Cup!!

For the past few months, we’ve had a handful of people tell us that Estonia has great craft beer. That’s not really something that we’re interested in, but when in Rome…

Once we got settled in, we headed out for dinner at a place that served local cuisine. It was delicious and beautifully displayed. I had some sort of fish dish that was one of the better things I’ve eaten in recent months.

Michael had braised elk which was also good, but not as good as what I had going on.

The real gem of the meal, though was this cider.

Actual the real gem may have been our waitress. She was great. She talked through everything we were ordering and gave great recommendations. Plus when I ordered the cider, she was excited about it and when she brought it back for me, she gave me the story that accompanies it.

Apparently, its a small, local producer who uses 50% apples from Estonia and 50% from Latvia. This is why the cider is called Ieva. Ieva is the name of the former First Lady of Estonia (until October of 2016). But she’s from Latvia. Hence her being the perfect mascot for a cider that is made of apples from both countries.

When you see the back of the label, you can see she’s holding a bow tie. Her husband is famous for wearing bow ties.

Seriously – how great is our waitress, whose name is apparently Hedvig!

After dinner we climbed some stairs to get a better view of the city.

What about this view! The big church in the back with the black and green roof is St. Olaf’s church. They like warm hugs and summer in there.

Also – how much do I love this?

So much! Which is why I had to pull out my camera to capture it. 😏

Another beautiful Old Town:

The above is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, an orthodox cathedral. How incredible is that?

Other than wandering around and exploring, we found a place to watch some football.

Pretty cool setup, don’t you think?

We’ve done a super fast tour of a bunch of Eastern European countries, but now it’s time to get to St. Petersburg, hang out for a week and see some live games!

June 17-19

The next stop on our whirlwind bus tour of Eastern Europe was Latvia. We were dropped off in Riga, Latvia’s capital. After spending twenty minutes walking around in a circle (just a bit turned around), we got ourselves to the train station and jumped on the next train out of town to Jūrmala. Boom! Train schedule in English!

Jūrmala is a beach town about 15 miles outside of the city. When researching this country, one of the constant recs I found online was to visit this town.

After our 30 or so minute train ride, we checked into our Airbnb. I was pumped about it.

Two reasons that I was pumped – the fact that it was a tiny house and the fact that it had a grill.

So we dropped our bags and went to the grocery store. It was time to do some grilling.

The grocery options left something to be desired, but we made do. And by that I mean Mike made do. Grilled chicken and Pringles!

After our epic grill session, we headed towards the beach to see what we were working with. On the way, we walked through town. It was a super cute beach town… of which we don’t have a single picture. It’s not clear to me how that is possible, but it’s disappointing.

The beach was also really cool. It had a lot of activities – big bouncy house for kids and basketball nets and soccer nets. But the coolest section had some child size excavators that kids could use to dig sand and move it around. It was awesome. A great family beach. Once again, not a single picture. What the heck.

We had a couple days here, and we are pretty tired from moving around so much, so mostly we just had recovery time. You can tell we’re tired by our lack of photos. We watched some tv, hung out on the beach, enjoyed town and walked around. Our only beach shots were from late in the afternoon on our second day when it was pretty cloudy.

We did get some runs in. The sand was pretty packed in down by the water which made it perfect for running. See how happy I am that my run is over?

The beach town did have its share of tourists. And with those tourists come the ridiculous photo shoots. Michael went for a run on the beach. Before leaving, two women were standing by a post taking posed photos of each other. He ran a 10k. It took him about 53 minutes. When he returned, they were still there!

So that was basically it. We really loved this town and I’m disappointed we don’t have any photos since it was such a beautiful town. To prove how beautiful this town was, and to give it the credit it is due, I took these pictures from the internet to show you.

See? I told you.

June 16

So after a tougher time in Minsk, we were pumped to arrive in Vilnius. Michael called Vilnius a better city. I would agree, but really it was just worlds more Western than Minsk. Everyone spoke English, signs were in English and you would have thought it was a college town with all the bars and restaurants on each street.

Note – it is technically a college town since there is a university that we had to walk through to get to the center of town. But it is also the capital of the country so nothing we should be calling simply a college town.

The streets were cutesy and they had bands playing in the center square.

We liked the town a lot, but really all we did for those 24 hours was wander around and watch World Cup games. The real star to this city is not the people or the streets or the sights. It is this gem right here:

An Ode to the Comfort Hotel:

When Michael told me we were staying at the Comfort Hotel, I thought nothing of it. As we wandered up to this place, both of us looked at each other and laughed a bit. It was a Comfort Inn! A little something to make us feel at home.

Now, this was no ordinary Comfort Inn. It is the Vilnius Rock ‘n Roll Comfort Hotel. And this place was awesome. The reception was called “barception” and you could get a beer while checking in. Now that may seem hokey, but there was a line of people waiting for beers and the restaurant area was packed with people hanging out at the Comfort Hotel.

The barception was not what made the hotel awesome, though. It was the signage.

And that was just the start.

Get it? Who tall are you?

And the signs in the room were just as good.

This sign was especially relevant as I spent the majority of my shower disproving it by singing MU330, “Hoosier Love” quietly, after seeing a post about it on facebook.

The signage in the dining room was just as great

So that’s about it for Lithuania. It was easy, fast and really enjoyable… but a good portion of this enjoyment was due to our awesome hotel.

June 15

So… Belarus…

We wanted to go through a few Baltic countries on our way to St. Petersburg where we’ll be watching some World Cup next week. Belarus is apparently not a Baltic country because it’s not on the Baltic Sea and not an Eastern Bloc country because it wasn’t in the Warsaw Pact. Thank you Google for all of the enlightenment. It was kind of on the way and people from the US don’t need a visa as long as they’re there less than 5 days… or so we thought.

When we tried to board the bus from Kraków to Minsk, the bus driver was none too pleased with us. He was certain we couldn’t cross the border. I was pretty certain we could. But then our random new friend showed up. He spoke English as well as Russian while our driver only spoke Russian. Apparently you can only fly into Belarus, you cannot take a bus, if you are from the US. A little googling found a random travel blog that confirmed this. Crapola. But then second new random friend came over and told us that if we are going to the World Cup (we are) and have our fanIDs (we do) that we can maybe get in at a roadway border crossing. The rules were a little bit vague and the English wasn’t the most clear on the website. So we were heading towards a border crossing with no clue if we were going to be allowed in or not. Cool.

We got to the border and Poland had no issue letting us go. But then we drove the mile down to the Belarus side and things were less easy. Apparently, friend #2 was right about us being able to cross with the fanID. Great! But then they asked to see our medical insurance. No problem. I knew that this was a requirement and I had all the paperwork pulled up on my phone. Unfortunately they wanted to see a paper copy… which we don’t have. And viewing on my screen was completely unacceptable. Several phone calls had to be made and finally a higher up was brought on scene. Keep in mind that we’re in the middle of a 15 hour overnight bus ride. So we’re doing all of this at about 1am. The higher up reviewed my phone insurance, deemed it acceptable and we moved on to the next step – baggage. Two border control agents were having people open their bags and were using a drug sniffing dog. By the time Michael and I got up there, the one guy asked where we were from, shook his head and just told us to leave. That was easier than I was expecting. Apparently they wanted nothing to do with us and our overstuffed backpacks.

The rest of the bus ride was uneventful. We arrived a little before 9am and took our bags to the hotel to store while we explored the city.

That’s right. Our hotel was next to Casino Royal.

We spent the morning and early afternoon checking out the sights. To be honest, there wasn’t a ton going on in town. We started at Independence Square which had a statue of Lenin and some government buildings.

Then we saw the Church of Sts. Simon and Helen. It was being renovated. This church, like every church in Minsk has a history of getting passed around a bit. Built in 1905, the Catholic Church was robbed by the Red Army in 1932 and closed down by Soviet authorities at which point it became a theater. Then during the German occupation, it became a church again, but after the war, it went back to being a cinema. In 1990, the building was returned to the Catholic Church at which point it was renovated and turned back into a church.

It started raining pretty hard, so we popped into this coffee shop. I took the picture the next morning which is why it doesn’t look too rainy.

Since it refused to stop raining and I left our umbrella in the karaoke/trivia bar in Kraków, we grabbed an Uber to the other side of town for lunch.

This was the recommended local dish. It was pork of some sorts on a skewer with potato pancakes and, of course, fireworks. I was surprised to say the least.

After lunch it had stopped raining, so we got to walk around and see some more sights.

City Hall:

Cathedral of Saint Virgin Mary which I thought was a strange name.

The door was open, so we popped our heads in. Whoops – that’s a wedding going on.

Cathedral of the Holy Spirit:

The below is the Palace of the Republic. It makes me think of a sad 1970’s government building, but apparently this is where lots of social and political events take place with presentations, exhibitions, and concerts open to the public.

Cathedral fo St. Apostles Peter and Paul:

So that was basically it for sights. A ton of churches and a ton of government buildings.

We didn’t spend much time in Minsk, which I’m mostly fine with. The city didn’t seem to have much going on and with no signage in English, it was a bit hard to move around. Thank God for Google maps and Google translate.

The next morning we headed off to the bus station.

There was a bit of panic when I saw the above.

Don’t worry – this is our bus heading to Vilnius, Lithuania. Obvious, isn’t it?

June 12-14

After our brief visit to Slovakia and another few hours on the bus, we arrived in Krakow, Poland. There are some cities that when we visit, within just a few minutes of being there, we know we’re going to like it. That’s what happened when we arrived in Krakow. The walk to our hotel was through a tunnel that could have been shady, but it chose not to be. Then once we got out of the tunnel, we happened upon a food truck park. Perfect! So we got checked in, dropped off our bags and hurried back to the food trucks. It was already 9pm and we didn’t want to miss it.

We got there with just an hour left on the night and it was awesome. We had Georgian street food for dinner. This was the place… just envision it being open and that’s what it looked like.

We asked the guys at the truck if they were from Georgia (country not state). Nope. I don’t know why we assumed those guys were from Georgia but assumed the people at the Cuban place were not from Cuba (or Miami). Similarly, the West Palm Beach food truck people (I think burgers or something) were definitely not from California.

We also grabbed a few beers from the beer truck…

…and then relaxed in some beach chairs for a bit. This is what Georgian street food looks like. It was delicious.

The next morning we wandered around Old Town. We saw some more of the same that we’ve been seeing the past couple of weeks in European cities: government buildings, Churches, museums.

But the thing that is really neat about Kraków is that there a park that runs around the Old Town – just a small strip of park all the way around it in a circle.

That night, we had dinner at Pod Aniolami which translates to Under the Angels. The restaurant is cool because it sits on Gothic cellars.

This is also where we got our first pierogi from Poland. They were significantly better than the ones we ate at the pierogi festival in Chicago. Just found out that pierogi is the plural form. Singular is pieróg. The more you know.

Mmmmmm meat on fire…

After dinner we hurried over to a bar called Cocktails and Songs. I had read online that they were doing trivia. When we got there, we were assigned to a team with a guy from Northern Ireland and a guy from some other country. Now normally I would say that if I don’t remember where they are from. But I’m not sure that he knows where he is from. One of the first trivia questions was about New Zealand and he said “I’m from there”. But then he said he was Croatian. Then later in the evening, it was Australia. I guess it’s complicated?

What I do know is that we killed it. It was truly a joint effort but our team creamed the competition. This is the first time I’ve ever been on a winning trivia team in my life. Plus, it was mostly locals in the room who play every week. Even our two teammates were locals, kinda. Again, it’s complicated.

After trivia, the bar did karaoke. Who am I to complain? I had been wanting to go to karaoke for a few weeks now.

Michael and I sang The Beatles, “We Can Work it Out” and then I sang Todo, “Africa”, and Janis Joplin, “Mercedes Benz”. To be fair, Michael did join me for just a second on Todo. Also, apparently people love Janis because it was a hit.

These are our two teammates doing karaoke.

Here is the girl who liked us because we have straight teeth.

We had a lot of fun.

It did, however, make runs the next morning really, really, really hard. But with an overnight bus ahead of us, it was necessary to get moving!

For our last day in Kraków, we headed a bit out of town to see Schindler’s factory. Most of you should know Oskar Schindler from the Spielberg movie, Schindler’s List. Well, we got to see his factory. They have turned it into a museum that shows what Kraków was like under Nazi occupation from 1939-1945.

After having seen a lot about Nazi occupations and concentration camps lately, we were both hoping it would talk more about Schindler, himself. But you take what you can get.

I haven’t seen the movie in years, so we needed a bit of a refresher on the specifics of Oskar Schindler. He was a German industrialist and member of the Nazi party who is credited with saving the lives of 1200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamel factory. They made pots and then covered them in enamel.

Also, they expanded to make ammunitions during the war. Originally, Schindler was a war opportunist, but when he saw the atrocities occurring he began to bribe German officers to keep his employees from being sent to concentration camps. In 1942 the Kraków Ghetto was emptied. All Jews were sent to a nearby concentration camp. One such Jew, Mietek Pemper, worked in the office of the head of that concentration camp. He reached out to Schindler with information regarding the fact that the Germans were going to close down his factory. Pemper knew this because he had access to all German communications that came through his boss’s office. This closure meant that Schindler’s workers would be sent to Auschwitz. So Schindler changed from making enamelware to anti-tank grenades.

Pemper helped develop the famous “Schindler’s List” to save as many Jewish workers as possible. He compiled and typed the list of over 1,000 Jewish inmates deemed “decisive for the Nazi war effort”. Those on the list, including Pemper himself, were transferred to Schindler’s new grenade factory located in Czechoslovakia in October 1944 and were ultimately saved from Auschwitz.

After the war Schindler was completely bankrupt from all the bribes he had to pay to save these people. He was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

Schindler’s desk:

It was a really nice way to end our time in Kraków. Hopefully we will be back to this city. It is a really cool city.

June 12

On our bus ride from Budapest to Krakow, we drove through the entire country of Slovakia, for a few hours, from South to North.

Views from the window of this beautiful country that we don’t have time to stop and enjoy:

A local beer from our stop:

Us enjoying all Slovakia has to offer!!! (At least all it has to offer considering we only had our feet on the ground for ten minutes).