I speak zero Polish and did fine. There is a language barrier but not something that couldn't be overcome. If you want something, you point and get a price. If you need directions get a map, use your phone, or keep asking until you find someone who can help. The countryside may be a little different but nonverbal communication works well. I drove from the southern border to the Baltic.

If Bigfan were English he'd be going to Krakow for his guys weekends instead of Las Vegas. The place was filled with big groups of younger English guys getting shitfaced and having fun.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

All of a sudden it doesn't sound so appealing

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Keep going, GD.

I had a good post that but got logged out so no I'm going to truncate

Day 3- Krakow- Krakow old town is as nice of an old town as you will find in Europe. It is well preserved from WW II unlike so many other European old towns.

My parents aren't as mobile as they once were so I booked us a gold cart tour of the city. It may sound cheesy but it is great. Cars have to pay a steep price to drive in the old town so tour guides have set up a fleet of large golf carts to host tours. They are big enough for groups and can get in and around tight places. They are guided and will stop anywhere you want. Perfect for my parents

The square in Krakow is the biggest in Europe. It is teeming with life. Every hour a bugler plays a song stopping mid note in honor of a bugler killed by an arrow while warning the town of attack. The Cloth Hall has been selling goods for close to a millennium. You can hear the clip clop of horses on the cobblestones. This is the European experience you paid for!

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The tour was great, taking us through the three main parts Old Town, Kazmierz and Wawel Castle. It was good in that it gave an overview of the city and then you could follow up to items of interest in later days.

Kazmierz is the old Jewish quarter. Polish and Jewish history are inextricably intertwined. Poland was the most welcoming location for Jews in the world for a very long time since the reign of Kazmierz the Great. Unfortunately, WW II destroyed centuries of harmony. Speilberg used much of this neighborhood for Schindler's List. Schindler's factory remains, intact, and is now a museum. The museum isn't really about Schindler, but instead about the time leading up to the war, during and finally after as the Russians took over.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

A big FU to Bernstein: Krakow is a city of 130+ churches, most older than the US and all seemingly with a story. Churches were packed with worshippers. Friday at 6 pm...packed. Saturday...wall to wall weddings followed by services at night. Sunday...SRO. This was not just a sample of A church. I bet I went into 25 churches in several different cities and there was not a single time I did not see someone in prayer. I knew this was a Bernstein lie from past experience but this was reconfirmed.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That gold cart tour sounds pretty cool. I like that bugler story. And what was the Bernstein story you referenced?

I do not remember a specific Krakow/Polish Bernstine comment. Or are you referring to his general religion/churches are dead type stuff.

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After the tour, we went to Jagiellonian University. It is one of the oldest institutions in Europe. It's star pupil was Copernicus, whose fingerprints are all over the place. They have preserved their oldest hall with original lecture rooms, professor quarters and treasury. The also have a clock with figures that come out on the hour. It is really interesting to see the evolution of the idea of universities from how they began to what they are today. Poland hasn't embraced obscene capitalism. If this were in the US they would have a bookstore bigger than the library. Instead, there is a small shop with some t shirts and books on Copernicus. The school doesn't disappoint in what you would expect from an old European University.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

he gave a sweeping statement about churches in europe

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

We finished the day at a traditional restaurant I picked out. It was built like a country house. We were greeted by a hostess in a peasant dress with heaving bosoms. If you want to know where I got my mentality, my dad was the first to comment on the "atmosphere". The waiter said for a group like ours he wanted to put together a meal heavy on meats. He wasn't lying...pork knuckle, kebabs, half chicken, duck, ribs, mounds of kapusta and potatoes and salads. The kids must have been hungry because they shied away from nothing. Finish with a shot of vodka. Great food, great atmosphere.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Wow that sounds good right now.

i feel sorry for the hotel maid.

I was working that stuff off every day without a problem. We walked 14 miles one day and averaged about 10. I was the one who had to carry backpacks and water as well.

By the way, the food was cheap at least in the south. I think that meal was 280 zloty for a family including drinks and the exchange was 3.6 to 1. It was something like $10 per person on average

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

GD, that sounds awesome. One of my neighbors went to a traditional wedding in Poland a few years back. He said the wedding reception lasted several days. The amount of food and vodka consumed was beyond belief.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

how do I post cell phone pictures?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

IMU? Please respond.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

do you have a smartphone?

go to your web browser: imgur.com

the mobile site should load and there's an "upload" button in the top right. once you click there should be two options:
1. device
2. paste web URLs

pick device obviously and you'll then be able to pick the photo from your library to upload.

once uploaded it'll give you various link options. you'll want to choose "direct link". then copy that into CSFMB

The stories sound awesome, glad you had a great trip.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur

I enjoy the entire dolphin catalog, yet this is classic.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Agree, GD is doing work here. Impressive.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Nobody wants to see pictures of your junk.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Hell of a macro lens ...

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Day 4- Auschwitz and Wieliczka: well, you know this is going to be a somber first half of the day. It kind of gets you to wonder what is the morbid curiosity of going to Auschwitz. It's not so much a memorial to the lives lost there like a cemetery would be. It really is more of a preservation of the atrocities committed. Anyway, it is considered a must see and this was my third visit. These are both day trips (on the same day) out of Krakow. We scheduled a tour for each as that is the only way it was going to work in our schedule. Bus arrives at 8 and plays a documentary made by the Russian army filmmaker who first arrived on the scene.

There are a lot of countries that have gone through a lot of pain but can you think of a one two punch quite as lethal as being overrun by the Nazis only to be "liberated" by the Russians for the next five or so decades?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I wasn't sure how Auschwitz would play out with the kids. My oldest child is old enough to understand and appreciate. The others cannot really grasp the enormity of it. I didn't want to put them in a situation that would bring nightmares. My parents told me a story of the first time we went there when I was a child. We were walked into the gas chamber...then the tour guide shut and locked the door on us "to give us a perspective of what it was like". Times change and I guess that experience must now be frowned upon.

The maintenance of the camp is certainly impressive. Walking in under the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate has to have a sobering effect on everyone. Auschwitz is divided into two camps. Auschwitz 1 is the original camp and seemed like much more of a worker camp. Auschwitz II is Birkenau, not very far away and designed to execute the true final solution. II has the same sobering entrance in that it is simply a stark train track running from outside through the gate and into the camp. You view the barracks, the gas chamber, the ovens, the fences and the guard towers. You don't have to imagine what it looked like, it is there in your face. However, of the three times I have visited, this one seemed the least emotionally draining. It might have been the fact that it was an incredibly buys day at the camp and we were kind of rushed through without time for contemplation. The kids did not seem frightened by the experience.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Not even remotely trying to compare the 2, but when I visited Alcatraz some years back, they closed a cell on us and it was not a pleasant experience.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur

1.1 million were killed there. 90% Jews. 100k+ non jewish poles. I find this number strange. I understand that a sub category within the country was specifically being targeted and that is why it deserves differentiation. However, after several centuries, those people were Poles of jewish ancestry. If, say, 1.1 Americans were killed, 90% of whom were Irish, would we break it down in a similar fashion. Anyway, just a thought. I don't play the game of weighing one group's pain against another. Lots of people died for nothing.

The other thing is that Israelis seem to use the place as generator of nationalism in its youth. The holocaust certainly can be historically linked to the creation of Israel. Still, it seems incongruous to me to literally drape yourself in a country's flag while mourning those who died due in part to the fostering of extreme nationalism.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Wieliczka is a salt mine that operated for about 1,200 years all the way up to the late 1900s. It is interesting to see how the salt was mined. However, the real show is the carvings done in salt by the miners. Sculptures, friezes even a huge underground church. This was definitely worth the visit and a real interest to the kids.

I didn't have the same big hit that night with dinner that I had previously. My wife wanted to eat on the main square. This is her first time in mainland Europe and I can see the attraction to it. However, sophisticated travelers realize eating on any square is usually going to mean overpriced, mediocre food. The weather was beautiful, it was a Saturday night and this is the beginning of tourist season so you can add waiting for a table to that list. My parents were flying out the next day so I knew they wanted out. However, it's what my wife wanted and I wasn't going to deny her. You live, you learn. We paid for atmosphere and we certainly got it. However, homeboy too big wants dinner to be the focal point of his dinner. It wasn't and I was a little pouty. That isn't pretty while sitting there with your parents.

After dinner, the kids and my wife didn't want to walk around and I needed a break so I walked around Wawel Castle with my parents. They ended up having a fireworks show. You couldn't have cast a much better experience than walking in the shadows of an ancient castle along the Vistula on a warm summer night with a firework show. My mood changed for the better

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Nice stories GD. Keep 'em coming.

The ORD to Frankfurt to Wien travel reminded me of my first trip to Europe for work in 1984. After the overnight flight to Frankfurt and a 4 hour layover, when I checked in for the flight to Vienna they asked if I wanted smoking or non-smoking. I said non. Imagine my surprise when I boarded the 727 to find out that the non-smoking section was the left side of the plane and the smoking section was the right. You can guess how well that worked.

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Everyday when the sun goes down, I get with my friends, I begin to clown.
Now I don't care what the people are thinkin'. I ain't drunk, I'm jus' drinkin'!
-Albert King

Like non-smoking sections in restaurants. You had to walk through clouds of smoke to get to the corner where nobody was puffing.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way