Spring Break!

Happy May Day! In honor of the holiday we have been given Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off. This seems a bit much to me, but I can always use a break from school, especially now in the hectic run up to final testing, so I have been dutifully not working for the last four days. Travel-weary and short on money I decided not to go anywhere, opting instead to lounge around the apartment, do some GRE prep and leisure reading (nearly finished Orlando Figes' massive history of the Russian revolution), and finally post these pics taken at the end of March over spring break.

I spent the first few days in Lviv visiting volunteer friends. I also et up with Grinnell friends Cassie and Paul, who were residing in Amsterdam at the time and were also traveling over the break. I had been to Lviv before, but acting as tour guide I got to see some of the sights that I hadn't seen on previous trips. Other highlights include throwing the frisbee around one day, which I hadn't done in over a year, and introducing our guests to Ukrainian drinking culture.

Following that I crossed the border to Poland to meet Katie in Krakow. Rather than take the expensive but straightforward Lviv-Krakow train I decided to take a bus to the border, walk across the border, then take another train from the Polish border town of Pzsemysl (a name you can't pronounce properly without a mouth full of stewed cabbage) to Krakow. Somehow I made it to the hostel and found Katie there, an especially incredible feat considering I neglected to print out the hostel's address and relied on 'dead reckoning' to find it. Maps are for suckers.

Krakow was awesome, one of the best trips I've made since coming to Ukraine. I got to see Katie and most of my other Wisconsin friends over Christmas, but it's always good to see old friends, especially in foreign settings. We stayed in a great hostel - Mama's - better than any Mike and I stayed in last summer when we toured western Europe. Within minutes of arriving they were serving cake and coffee in the common room and I took that as a good omen.

We had three days in Krakow. Days we walked around seeing the touristy stuff, and we could afford to go to some clubs at night since the cost of living (i.e. cost of beer) in Poland is low. We sampled some good Polish beers, although after a few Katie got pretty bitey. It's obvious from this picture she's trying to take a chunk out of my torso. I had marks for days.

We also took a side trip to some salt mines. I think they're the largest salt mines in the world. We learned a lot of interesting salt trivia. Did you know it used to be used as currency in some regions? Yep, salt.

So all in all it was an excellent break, even if exhausting.