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Have not written since Tuesday, so I have some bits to fill in from the last few days in Krakow. On Wednesday, we went on a trip around Wawel Castle - the royal tombs, rooms full of weaponry (I was pretty interested in the weapons, especially the swords...), the castle itself (where, in one room, people wore period clothes and sang or used archaic instruments to perform a song), and the cathedral. It was really nice, but sadly no pictures were allowed of most of it. :-/ After the tour, I had my first Krakowian pretzel (obwarzanek; it had a mixture of seeds and such on it) and a vegetarian kebab (basically a regular kebab without meat or cheese or falafel - so lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, tahini-like sauce in a roll). I walked around the city a bit (including going back to a famous store for my family - a deli in the rynek that has candies on one wall and alcohol on the other). For dinner, I went to a place called MOMO (it is an eco vegetarian bar), where I had a miso soup with mixed vegetables and a plate with rice, beans and onions in a sauce, spinach and tofu, and zucchini and broccoli in a sauce (the best of the three; I liked it a lot). After dinner, we all met up for a string concert at a church near the hotel. The music included pieces by Handel, Vivaldi, Chopin, and Mozart. It was really nice. On Thursday, I went out for a walk and saw a monument for a famous Polish battle and then walked a bit at a mall and around the city before taking our group bus to Oswiecim/Auschwitz. This second time at the death camp, for me, was interesting since last time I did not watch the video shown to tourists. We also had two great guides - the one from the museum and our program director (who had previously worked as a guide at the camp years ago as a summer job when still at university). I learned a lot more and had another chance to look at the camp. I did not mind going again to experience it with different people and to learn some new or additional information. Thursday night included a little going out at night to dance and to see the city when it's dark. :-P On Friday, we went on a tour of Kazimierz, the Jewish area of Krakow. The tour included a few synagogues and a cemetery (I also saw a more recent Jewish cemetery later on after I went to the nearby mall). After the mall, we all met up at the restaurant at our hotel (http://www.podwawelem.eu/), where I had some barszcz with dumplings and an oriental salad with shrimp, before catching a train ride back to Warsaw. Since then I have been relaxing since I have more "travel lag" with fatigue and aching muscles. This has led to 24 hours of nothing. I have some schoolwork to accomplish and I am in the middle of catching up on TV shows and movies I have been meaning to see or missed recently. The weather today and tomorrow are not the best for going outside a lot, so at least I do not have to feel very guilty about not leaving much. School starts again on Monday for our final two weeks!

Photos added: http://photobucket.com/kab1221