Poland rocks

We're back. Typically on every trip there's a city that we like more than any other, and for a lot of us, that is KRAKOWm (Cracovia)! Even though Prague was pretty cool, Krakow was awesome! The shopping was fun and we bought little presents in the market in the center of one of the oldest city squares in Europe. I was pertty excited about taking Donna to Poland, since she's half Polish. And Sami P. is Polish, and was excited to go there, too! So Geo, Susan, Janeen, Bev, and I had an awesome Polish meal for lunch yesterday. We had galumpki, stuffed cabbage, pierogie (Polish ravioli as they call it). We took pictures and called Claire from the square, since we were so excited. This was by far one of the best meals we ever had EVER!

We spent several hours in Krakow yesterday, and some people told Anqi & Stephanie that they could get an awesome brat at some place in the square. They said this guy comes out in a blue van from 10pm-2am to sell the best brat we've ever had, so 8 of us decided to have us an adventure. We took taxis into town from our Holiday Inn Express (yes, a Holiday Inn in Poland AND yes, we are smarter). They dropped us off on a corner, and there was no blue van None. Nada. After trying to talk to some locals, they told us to walk about 300metres and we'd find him. So we took off down the road, and Alba, our tour director, came with us. We eventually found the place where it should've been and it wasn't there. Anqi & Stephanie were very funny and ran around looking for Polish sausage. We discovered that the guy doesn't work Sunday nights! Darn!

We stopped at a local pub, and then caught a taxi back to the hotel. We really liked Poland. Today we drove through Slovakia. Czechslovakia was unified for over 50 years, but they split in 1993. My family is from Czechslovakia, and I was very excited for these countries. Slovakia was kind of cool. Poland was relatively flat, but when we hit Slovakia it was hilly and more scandanavian. Tons of pine trees and mountains. We were in the bus for almost all day, and slept on and off. We had lunch in a small town in Slovakia, and we still really don't know the name of the place. We walked into this small town square in a very non-tourisy town, and we searched for a lunch place. Eventually we found a basement restaurant that was in English and had Euro conversions on the menu. Many from our group also found the same place.

The Slovakia food we ate was mostly fried and really cheap. It was a fried meat product with cheese and some kind of ham. Potatoes, too, And garlic & Camembert cheese soup. Wow, such good food!

So we now sit here on the patio outside our hotel in Budapest, Hungary. It was once two towns, Buda & Pest, then they unified and it's Budapest (pronounced Buddah-Pesht). Tomorrow is a 3 hour bus tour, walking around and shopping, then a Danube River Cruise. After dinner tomorrow, we will take the trolley into the old town and walk along the Danube and look at all the old old buildings to take pictures. Yes, dear readers, Devon alone has taken about 900 pictures (and yes, I will put a ton online afterward.)

Hotels have been pretty nice. No AC in most and it's STICKY! For AZ people, you don't get it. You just don't ... I feel like I take a bath as I walk around all day, and most of us do. The Holiday Inn Express was the only AC hotel. This hotell in Hugary is nice, too. Free wireless, and Geo brought his laptop so here I sit. Geo. Lacey, Tyler, Bev, Donna, Trey, Sami, Ray, Anqi and a friend from Georgia, Brittany (about whom I've already written).

Georgia friends leave after Hungary, and our bus driver lives here so we will have a new one when we leave for Austia on Wednesday. We are there until the end of our trip. I will try to post some pictures here tomorrow on this blog, but please make sure you are checking the Explorica blog since it's updated everyday by Alba, our Spanish tour director, whom we all love a ton.